In a recent interview with GQ, Apple Inc AAPL CEO Tim Cook revealed the one secret he learned from his predecessor Steve Jobs that is still used to this day.
In a wide-ranging interview with the publication, Cook said that he admired how Jobs held everyone at the company to the same standard of creativity and pushed them to their limit, regardless of which department they worked in.
"One of the things I loved about him was he didn't expect innovation out of just one group in the company or creativity out of one group," Cook said of Jobs. "He expected it everywhere in the company."
"When running operations, we tried to be innovative and creative in operations, just like we were creative elsewhere," the Apple CEO added. "We fundamentally had to be to build the products we were designing."
Cook has expressed admiration for Steve Jobs on several occasions. In various interviews and public appearances, Cook has spoken about Jobs' vision, passion for creating great products and leadership style. The former has also mentioned that he learned a great deal from Jobs, both from working with him directly and from studying his approach to business and leadership.
In 2011, Jobs announced his resignation as the company's CEO just six weeks before his death. Cook later took over as the new CEO.
"I knew I couldn't be Steve when I became CEO," Cook told GQ recently. "I don't think anybody could be Steve. I think he was a once-in-a-hundred-years kind of individual, an original by any stretch of the imagination. And so what I had to do was to be the best version of myself."
The Apple CEO told the publication that he still, however, uses some of Jobs' old traditions, like leading 9 a.m. meetings every Monday.
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Under Cook's leadership, Apple has continued to grow and expand its business in many ways. Since taking over as CEO, he has overseen the launch of several successful new products.
"We don't really look back very much at all in history," Cook said during the interview. "We're always focused on the future and trying to feel like we're very much sort of at that starting line where you can dream and have big ideas that are not constrained by the past in some way."
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