Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Imagine being Tim Cook in 2011. At age fifty, you're enjoying a superb career. You've been a senior executive at Apple since 1998, its head of global operations since 2007, and its acting CEO during your boss's medical leaves. But you can still enjoy a quiet life, away from the spotlight. No one is tweeting about you or stopping you on the street. Then your boss resigns in late August and dies six weeks later, unleashing a worldwide outpouring of grief for one of the most iconic innovators and entrepreneurs in history. Suddenly everyone seems deeply skeptical, if not contemptuous, of Apple's new CEO. How can a boring operations guy like Time Cook replace Steve Jobs, the genius who gave us the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, and so much more? But as journalist Leander Kahney shows in this first-even biography of Cook, the critics and skeptics were wrong. An operations nerd has led Apple to greater heights than ever during the past eight years, as it crossed the astonishing milestone of becoming the world's first trillion-dollar company. Under Cook, the iPhone has become the single most successful product of all time. The Apple Watch has spawned a whole new wearable industry. Apple's share of the PC market has increased steadily. And its service businesses (Music, apps, and digital subscriptions) have been growing astronomically. Kahney shows why none of these successes were merely lucky breaks for Cook, or merely by-products of the Jobs ear. Kahney also explores how Cook has used his visibility to make a difference beyond Apple's bottom line. Unlike Jobs, Cook is willing to speak out about public-interest issues such as internet privacy, human rights, and environmental conservation. And while he doesn't say much about his personal life, Cook's decision to come out as the first openly gay Fortune 500 CEO has made him a role model for the LGBTQ community. Based on interviews with Cook's colleagues--and told in the same engaging style as Kahney's Inside Steve's rain and Jony Ive--[this book] gives us new insights into Apples recent challenges and triumphs."-- Jacket.