Tim Cook sums up Steve Jobs in just four words

Apple boss Tim Cook joined the company in 1998, and has achieved an extraordinary amount in the years since: he has pushed Apple’s profits into the stratosphere, and become a billionaire in the process. But it turns out that the decision to take the job wasn’t as obvious at the time as it now seems in retrospect.

In a 2024 letter which the Steve Jobs Archive has this week published for the first time, Cook describes the mixed feelings with which he weighed up the prospects of working at Cupertino. In those days the company wasn’t the dependable corporate behemoth of 2026.

“At the time,” he writes, “Apple had been struggling and Steve was working to right a ship that had drifted in his absence. Many people doubted the company could survive, and I was warned that accepting a job there would come with risks.”

That “Steve,” of course, refers to the Apple founder who only the year before had returned from exile to be Apple’s sixth CEO. Cook describes his first meeting with Steve Jobs as a fateful day when “my desire to be part of something truly inspiring would finally meet its moment.” What follows is a fascinating glimpse of the first encounter between Apple’s two great leaders.

“When Steve spoke,” Cook recalls, “any trepidation I harbored instantly dissolved. I had never met someone with so much passion and vision.

“He spoke with charisma and clarity—about a future where technology could unlock a wellspring of human creativity and potential, connecting us and uplifting us in ways even he had yet to imagine. In Steve, I found an incredible mentor who inspired me to grow and challenge myself in new and important ways.”

And the rest is history. Jobs invited Cook to join his group of “deeply curious individuals willing to work hard for something greater than themselves” (those are the latter’s words, not the former’s), and he accepted. Some 13 years later, Cook followed in Jobs’ footsteps and became Apple’s seventh CEO.

Cook’s letter, along with others by various leaders and creators with a connection to Apple, was originally shared only with fellows of the Steve Jobs Archive. They are released this week as part of a celebration of what would have been Jobs’ 71st birthday.