Tim Cook On Tevanian Wanting To Leave Apple
Tim Cook, now Apple’s CEO, says that he worried about Tevanian leaving, and urged Steve in 2004 to figure out another challenge to keep the brilliant software engineer at Apple. “Steve looked at me,” Cook remembers, “and goes, ‘I agree he’s really smart. But he’s decided he doesn’t want to work. I’ve never found in my whole life that you could convince someone who doesn’t want to work hard to work hard.’”
I highlighted very few things in my reading of Becoming Steve Jobs, but I highlighted this. Tim Cook pushed Jobs to find Tevanian a new ‘challenge’ to keep him at Apple. This has direct parallels to recent stories about Jony Ive who has apparently considered leaving his role at Apple in the last decade. True or false, some see the Apple Watch as a way to keep Ive interested in staying at Apple. This anecdote shows that the executive team would at least consider projects of this nature.