Auburn Grad Takes Over at Apple

Auburn Computers Tim Cook will be temporarilty in charge at the computer company in Seattle while Steve Jobs is out on a medial leave.

by The Associated Press/ CBS News

Published: Thu, January 15, 2009 - 10:19 am CST Last Updated: Thu, January 15, 2009 - 10:27 am CST

SEATTLE (AP) - An Auburn graduate is the new head man at Apple.
Tim Cook will run the Seattle-based company while co-founder and
chief executive Steve Jobs takes a medical leave of absence until
the end of June.
Jobs made the announcement Wednesday.
A native of Alabama, the 48-year-old Cook graduated from Auburn
University in 1982 with an engineering degree. He is said to still
be a huge fan of Auburn's football team.
Before joining Apple in 1998, Cook worked at IBM Corp. for 12
years and spent a short time at Compaq Computer.
It's a road Cook has been down before, having run Apple for two
months in 2004 while Jobs recovered from surgery for pancreatic
cancer.

Mr. Cook filled in for Mr. Jobs in 2004 when the Apple chief took a leave to
battle his cancer. Last week, Mr. Jobs said he was suffering a "hormone imbalance"
that had caused dramatic weight loss, but said he had begun "relatively simple and
straightforward" treatment and would continue as CEO. His health has been closely
scrutinized by Wall Street since his bout with cancer, which Mr. Jobs said has been
treated successfully by surgery. Concerns about his health were reignited last year
when he appeared on stage at an event looking gaunt and intensified last month when
he said he would skip the Macworld trade show earlier this month.
Mr. Jobs's health is key to Apple. Mr. Jobs co-founded Apple in 1976, was
dismissed in a boardroom coup in 1985 and began a second leadership stint at
Apple in 1997. He is deeply involved in all aspects of the company's business and is widely
credited for reviving the then-struggling computer maker in the late 1990s
with hit products such as the iMac desktop computer.
More recently, Apple has churned out the iPod digital music player and the
iPhone and cemented a place as a leading consumer-electronics maker.
While Mr. Jobs takes an unusual hands-on role in design decisions, people
familiar with the company's inner workings say the company's design team
should be able to keep churning out innovative products, barring an exodus of
top talent.

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