The advice Steve Jobs gave to Apple’s CEO: “Never ask what I would do”
Many companies are closely linked to their iconic founders — from Mark Zuckerberg as the face of Meta to Warren Buffett leading Berkshire Hathaway for decades. But when it came time for Tim Cook to take the helm at Apple, the brand’s late co-founder Steve Jobs instructed him to carve his own path at the $3.83 trillion technology giant.
“(Jobs’) advice to me was, ‘Never ask what I would do, just do what’s right,'” Cook told CBS Sunday Morning in a recent interview.
Also read: Amazon’s beginnings: Bezos had an office in a rented garage and held meetings in a bookstore
It was a lesson that Jobs learned while working with Disney — the Apple co-founder was also one of the three main people responsible for founding Pixar Animation Studios, having acquired the group from Lucasfilm in 1986.
Later, entertainment giant Disney purchased Pixar in 2006, and during his work at the company, Jobs noticed a pattern.
“He saw Disney go through a kind of paralysis, with people sitting around discussing what Walt (Disney) would do,” Cook explained. “And he didn’t want that for Apple.”
Apple’s CEO explained that, at the time, the company had never undergone a “professional transition” in executive command; previous successions always occurred in moments of “panic”.
However, Jobs wanted to do things differently this time. So he called Cook to his home and offered him the CEO position—with no pressure to imitate his leadership style.
“I’ll never forget that, and it was a huge gift to me because it took the question off my shoulders: ‘What would Steve do?’” Cook continued. “I just focused on work and thought, ‘I’m going to be the best version of myself.’”
Cook is bringing his own style but keeping these core principles
Cook first joined Apple in 1998, following stints at PC maker Compaq and IBM, less than a year after Jobs returned as interim CEO. From 2000, Jobs took over as permanent CEO, while Cook rose to senior roles, becoming chief operating officer (COO) in 2005.
Over nearly three decades at the company, working under Jobs until his death in October 2011, Cook learned which principles are essential to the company’s “DNA.” Although Jobs advised the current CEO to follow his own path, the co-founder conveyed enduring fundamentals that will always be central to Apple.
“(Jobs) had the vision that collaboration would produce great results. That one plus one equals three, not two. That if you share an idea and debate it, it grows and improves,” Cook explained in an interview with CBS. “If you care enough to call someone at 10 at night because you have an idea, amazing things can come from that.”
And this remains true to this day; Cook said the strategy of “discussing and debating everything” at Apple meetings, generating bigger and better ideas, goes back to the company’s origins. Cook spoke about different strengths he has developed within the business, especially in accessibility, privacy and education. But he maintains the culture of collaboration that Jobs popularized through decades of leadership.
“(Jobs) had this idea of focus: you say ‘no’ to a thousand things to say ‘yes’ to the one thing that really matters,” Cook continued. “And when you do something, you have to do it at a level of excellence where good is not enough: it has to be extraordinary.”
The advice other business leaders got from Jobs
Throughout his career, Jobs advised many people on how to achieve their own success — from recent college graduates to leaders of billion-dollar companies.
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, said on Lenny’s Podcast in 2024 that Jobs helped him overcome “entrepreneurial block.” Apple’s co-founder instructed him to do three things: expand his business tenfold in two years, win a big customer for Salesforce’s automation product, and build an app economy.
Benioff believed Jobs wanted him to create an app store, so he launched AppExchange, later giving Apple the App Store brand and the appstore.com domain in gratitude for Jobs’ help. That advice “dramatically influenced my career and my entire life,” Benioff said.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz also received some tough advice from Jobs that ended up putting him on the path to success.
It was 2008, and the coffee chain was in crisis. After confiding in Jobs about the company’s problems, Schultz was advised to fire his entire leadership team — with the argument that they would all leave within nine months anyway.
The then CEO of Starbucks thought the idea was absurd, but said Jobs was right in the end: everyone left except one.
Jobs also had essential advice for young job seekers who aspire to greatness: do what you love. It’s a lesson that sustained the technology pioneer after being ousted from the company he founded and facing crises like Apple’s near-bankruptcy.
“Your work is going to be a big part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do,” Jobs said in his commencement speech at Stanford University in 2005.
“If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking — and don’t settle. As with everything that involves the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
