 Apple's COO Tim Cook (left), CEO Steve Jobs (center) and EVP Product Marketing Phil Schiller.
On whether Apple could live without him "We've got really capable people at Apple. I made Tim [Cook] COO and gave him the Mac division and he's done brilliantly. I mean, some people say, 'Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.' And, you know, I think it wouldn't be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple. And the board would have some good choices about who to pick as CEO. My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that's what I try to do." On his demanding reputation: "My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be." Last updated March 07 2008: 7:10 PM ET
|  Apple tops the list, Google and Berkshire Hathaway move up, and Costco cracks the top 20 this year. (more)  Apple's chief likes to make his own rules, whether the topic is computers, stock options, or even pancreatic cancer. (more)  For the third straight year, Apple is the most admired company for innovation. Which other innovators made the top 10? (more) |
