“You look for people that are not political. People that are not bureaucrats. People that really don’t care who gets credit. People that can privately celebrate the achievement, but not care if their name is the one in the lights – that there are greater reasons to do things,” Cook said in conversations on April 26 and April 27 at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business with Dean Bill Boulding.
Cook, who earned his MBA at the school in 1988, was on hand for his 25th class reunion. The university has released videos of the conversation in seven snippets that address topics including collaboration, ethics, intution and inspirational leaders.
“You look for wicked smart people. You look for people who appreciate different points of view. You look for people that care enough that they have an idea at 11 at night and they want to call and talk to you about it because they’re so excited about it and they want to push the idea further,” Cook said. “And that they believe that somebody can help them push the idea another step instead of them doing everything themselves.”
“The reason Apple is special is that we focus on hardware, software and services, and the magic happens where those three come together. And so it’s unlikely that someone focused on one of those in and of themselves can come up with magic, and so you want people collaborating in such a way that you produce these things in such a way that can’t be produced otherwise. And you want people to believe in that.”
Cook talks about collaboration and the qualities he admires in the video above, and on the three things he focuses on – people, execution and strategy -- in the video below.
