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BBC Sounds. Music, radio,

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podcasts. Hey guys,

0:46

surprise. It's Dua here. We're

0:48

back for one more special episode

0:51

of Dua Lipa at your service. This

0:54

is an episode that I can't even believe we're doing.

0:56

We're very, very excited about this. I'm

0:59

currently in London. I'm on

1:01

my sofa and I just

1:03

got the five minute text from

1:05

the man who's coming to join me to do an interview

1:08

who is none other than CEO

1:11

of Apple, Tim Cook.

1:12

This is surreal.

1:14

I'm very excited. I'm a little bit nervous.

1:17

I don't know what to expect, but I think it's going

1:19

to be a really fun conversation. And I

1:21

hope you guys enjoy this very special episode

1:23

of

1:24

Dua Lipa at your service with my very,

1:26

very, very, very, very special guest, Tim Cook.

1:39

Tim. Yes. Thank

1:42

you so much. It's so great to be here. Honestly,

1:44

it's so amazing to have you here at home

1:46

on my sofa. And I love

1:48

it. It's beautiful. Thank you.

1:51

I have to

1:53

say, before this interview, I went

1:55

on the internet to see what Apple is worth.

2:00

It's astonishing. It's

2:02

the biggest company in the world with a valuation

2:05

of around $3 trillion.

2:08

It's an incredible figure just in

2:10

itself and I guess it's

2:13

more than entire countries.

2:15

To kind of put it into perspective, it's

2:17

about the same as the GDP of

2:20

the UK or France.

2:22

I understand that

2:25

you're

2:25

only doing one interview while you're here

2:27

in the UK and I'm just so delighted to have you

2:29

here. I'm so glad you would spend time with

2:31

me. What? I'm serious.

2:34

Of course. No,

2:35

this is really exciting because I'm really

2:37

looking forward to just digging into

2:40

some of the issues that you're looking into now and

2:42

in the future. And as well

2:44

as what you've learned about tech and

2:46

life and leadership in your 25

2:48

years at Apple. It's incredible.

2:52

Should we just get started? Absolutely. Absolutely.

2:55

I'm raring to jump in. So

2:57

it's not every day that I have the

2:59

CEO of the world's biggest company in my living room.

3:02

So I should probably take a little bit of advantage of that

3:04

and get some tips to help with my

3:07

own work-life balance. And

3:09

I was wondering, like, what is

3:12

the day-to-day running of a company like

3:14

Apple? And take me a little bit through your

3:16

day, like day in the

3:19

life of Tim

3:19

Kirk from the moment you wake up to

3:22

the very end of the day. I get up really

3:24

early. I'm an early bird, like

3:27

it's four to five. Wow.

3:31

And I spend my first

3:33

hour doing email. And

3:36

I'm pretty religious about doing this. I

3:38

read emails from a lot

3:40

of customers and employees.

3:44

And the customers are telling me things

3:46

that they love about

3:49

us or things that they want changed

3:51

about us. Employees

3:53

are giving me ideas. But

3:56

it's a way to stay grounded in terms

3:58

of what the community is doing. community is feeling

4:01

and I love it.

4:02

And then after, so you do emails and then you

4:04

go

4:04

into the office and it's just more kind of... Well,

4:06

before I go into the office, I go work out. Okay.

4:10

And... So, emails, working out. Working

4:12

out. I spend an hour in the gym, usually

4:15

doing strength training. Okay. And

4:17

I've got somebody that really pushed me to do things

4:20

I don't want to do. And

4:23

I do no work during that period of time

4:25

at all. I never check my phone. Okay.

4:28

And I'm just totally focused on working out.

4:31

And after doing that, after

4:34

showering, et cetera, I go into the office

4:37

and I start working with people I love.

4:41

And it's an incredible feeling to

4:43

work with people that bring out

4:45

the best in you. And

4:48

that fundamentally, we all believe

4:50

that one plus one equals three. You

4:52

know, that your idea plus my

4:55

idea is better than the individual

4:57

ideas of their own. I love

5:00

that. And so, things like that

5:02

go on all day long. And I'll divide

5:05

the day in terms of spending time with

5:07

product teams or spending time with marketing

5:10

teams or spending time with the executive

5:12

team. And we're either handling

5:15

issues of the day or hopefully our

5:18

balance is more on working

5:20

on future stuff. And

5:22

thinking about what's next.

5:24

I want to go back to the start a little bit because

5:26

you grew up in a blue collar family.

5:29

I did in small town Alabama.

5:31

And now you're heading the world's most valuable

5:34

company. I mean, it's a pretty incredible journey

5:36

that you've been on. Can you tell me a little

5:38

bit about your upbringing and like

5:40

how it set you up on this road?

5:42

It was really a jagger

5:45

journey. My childhood,

5:48

I come from a very modest background.

5:52

My mother worked in a pharmacy

5:55

as a clerk and

5:57

my father worked in a shipyard.

6:01

and very blue collar family, lots of

6:03

love, little money, was

6:07

sort of the childhood. And

6:09

they really taught me the value of hard

6:12

work and

6:16

instilled in me at an extremely

6:18

young age that working

6:21

could bring you great purpose and

6:24

be a key part of your life.

6:27

And I started actually with

6:29

a paper route when I was 13 throwing

6:32

talking papers and I would get up in

6:34

the middle of the night to

6:37

throw everybody's papers so that they could,

6:40

when they got up in the morning, they would have their newspaper.

6:43

And I then took various

6:45

jobs from there, whether it was

6:48

flipping hamburgers at the local

6:51

tasty freeze and

6:54

doing anything I could to

6:56

make some amount of money because I really

6:59

wanted to go to college. And

7:02

my father being in the shipbuilding

7:05

business was subject

7:07

to layoffs in

7:10

that business. It was a very cyclical kind of business.

7:14

And so we would go through tougher

7:16

times during the layoff periods.

7:18

And I always wanted something better for

7:20

myself, more of a job

7:22

that was regular and

7:25

that you could depend on an income

7:28

stream with. And so I wanted to go to college

7:30

and better myself. And

7:32

I wound up at Auburn, which

7:35

is a public university in

7:37

Alabama. And I

7:39

loved it. I loved

7:41

it. The uni experience was... The

7:44

university experience was unbelievable.

7:46

I went a little wild, of

7:48

course. You have to.

7:51

You have to in college. You

7:53

have to. And the world just

7:56

opened for me. I was

7:58

always curious. But you

8:00

get even more curious in college because

8:02

you can take so many different courses and

8:05

challenge yourself in intellectual different

8:08

ways. And it was wonderful.

8:11

And then after that, I started my career

8:13

at first at IBM,

8:16

then went to graduate school

8:18

at Duke, and then

8:21

eventually made my way to Apple.

8:24

It's an incredible journey. It's hearing

8:27

you speak like I remember also when I was really

8:29

young. I think I always wanted to have a job. It

8:31

was again, like when I was 13, I

8:34

was in school. And I think my first

8:36

job, I had gone to a

8:38

pharmacy nearby and a woman

8:40

was selling like, I guess it was

8:42

like the Swedish equivalent to like Avon

8:44

or something at the time. And I was like, let me take this catalog

8:46

and like sell products at the college at my school. So

8:49

that was kind of like my first job. And

8:51

then it progressed from there, but very early

8:53

on, I had like a dream that I always

8:55

wanted to do music and that I wanted to be on stage

8:58

and I wanted to perform. And

9:00

I think I was probably like 10 where

9:03

I was like, I really wanna do this, but I never really knew

9:05

that it was even possible. What was your

9:07

dream? Like was being

9:10

the head of Apple,

9:11

like something that you would have

9:13

ever envisioned doing? It's not something

9:15

I envisioned for myself to be totally honest

9:17

with you. I was in high school,

9:20

I wanted to be a musician. I

9:23

learned how, or kind of learned

9:25

how to play the trombone. I was never any good.

9:28

But I wanted to be in a jazz band and

9:31

I was in a marching band for a while. And

9:34

it kind of hit me

9:36

that I was never gonna be great at it, that

9:39

this was just not my calling, but

9:42

I loved math and sciences.

9:45

And so I decided to study engineering

9:48

in college. And

9:50

that's where I got my start was engineering

9:53

and I was first focused on robotics

9:56

and in the manufacturing lines.

10:00

learning how to manufacture products. And

10:03

this was really cool to me because I love creating

10:05

things. That's so cool.

10:07

It's so nice to just

10:10

get to know you a bit more because I think it's fair to say

10:12

that, you know, we know less about

10:14

you than the more, let's

10:16

say extroverted leaders of

10:19

other big tech companies. What

10:22

kind of leader do you try to be? Well,

10:26

I just try to be a really good one. I

10:29

try to be one that really

10:31

deeply believes in collaboration because

10:34

I do deeply believe that

10:36

our ideas, bouncing

10:40

ideas off of one another, that

10:42

this creates a bigger

10:45

idea than either one of us could generate

10:47

on our own. And that when you can

10:49

do this with larger groups

10:51

of people, not totally

10:53

large, but, you know, several

10:56

people, that these ideas can

10:58

be exponential in size

11:01

and magnitude. And that

11:03

it's an unbelievable what you can create

11:05

with them, whether it's creating products

11:08

or creating marketing or

11:12

whatever you're working on together.

11:14

I really deeply believe this. And

11:16

so I try, my leadership style

11:19

is to try to get everyone to work

11:21

together in that kind of way.

11:24

Yeah, the art of collaboration, I think,

11:26

is pretty, is special. Like

11:28

when minds come together and create something really

11:31

unique.

11:32

There's

11:33

a mythology around your predecessor

11:36

and the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, is

11:38

a great visionary leader. And

11:40

I watched the film called Jobs like a

11:43

few years ago now. And he is a fascinating

11:45

subject. But at the same time, when you

11:48

joined Apple in 1998, the

11:50

company was almost bankrupt. That's

11:53

right. And today, as I said

11:55

earlier, it's worth about $3 trillion

11:58

and around like 90%. if that came under your

12:01

tenure. Do you ever think that you don't

12:03

get enough credit?

12:04

No, I don't

12:07

look at it like that at all, to be honest.

12:10

Uh, Steve was

12:13

a original.

12:16

I think only Steve could

12:19

have created Apple and

12:21

we owe him a debt of gratitude.

12:25

And there's no doubt in my mind

12:27

that if he were still

12:29

alive today, the company would be doing

12:31

outstanding and he would still be

12:34

CEO. And so I don't,

12:36

I don't think of it as a credit deal.

12:38

And plus I get to work with people

12:41

that I love and that are unbelievable

12:44

at doing what they do. And so

12:46

we, we share the

12:49

credit from the company.

12:51

I love that. I think, I think you're an

12:53

incredible leader and I think in more ways than

12:55

one, when you

12:57

publicly came out in 2014, you

12:59

were the only openly gay CEO in

13:02

the fortune 500 and

13:05

today, nearly 10 years later,

13:07

that number has increased to four. Right.

13:11

That's only four openly gay

13:13

CEOs across 500 companies. First

13:17

of all, what the hell? Um,

13:21

like I feel like we've moved, moved on further

13:23

than this. Like, why do you think we're still not

13:25

seeing equal representation at

13:27

like the top levels of business?

13:29

I think there's still a glass

13:32

ceiling and

13:34

not in every company. I,

13:37

we've, we've killed the glass ceiling.

13:39

We've shattered it and an Apple

13:41

and people that came

13:43

before me, I stood on their shoulders

13:45

and, and we took it further and

13:48

further, but I think in a large number

13:50

of companies, there's still a glass ceiling. It's

13:53

bizarre that it's like

13:56

that. My own deep belief

13:58

is that everybody should be. treated with dignity

14:00

and respect. And if you start

14:03

from that angle, a

14:05

lot of other problems kind of go

14:07

away and never create

14:09

themselves. But I do think

14:11

there's still a ceiling for

14:14

not only LGBTQ, but

14:17

for women, for people of

14:19

color. And we

14:21

have more work to do. Society

14:24

definitely has more work to do in

14:26

many countries in the world.

14:27

Yeah, I am quite interested

14:29

in like the racial diversity in

14:32

business as well. I checked

14:34

earlier and it's also, it's like currently

14:37

eight black CEOs in the Fortune 500.

14:39

And I imagine that it must be quite important to

14:41

you because you grew up during the civil rights

14:44

era in the U.S. in the deep

14:46

South. Like, do you have any recollections

14:49

from that time that continue to influence

14:50

your approach to equality today?

14:54

Oh yes, I remember

14:56

when Dr. King was assassinated.

15:01

And this was a extremely

15:03

sad time. He

15:09

was such a statue

15:12

that you felt like he

15:15

was taking the world in the direction

15:17

it should go. And it wasn't

15:20

so clear who else would follow

15:22

him. The same year that he was

15:24

assassinated, Bobby Kennedy

15:26

was assassinated. And this was in 68

15:30

and I was eight years old at the time.

15:33

And this was just the combination

15:37

of these two assassinations were

15:39

really weighed heavily

15:42

on me as a very, very young

15:44

person, knowing that

15:46

these two were pushing

15:49

the human race where it needed

15:51

to go. And it was

15:54

a very, very sad time.

15:57

I guess we can't really talk about.

16:00

Apple without talking about the iPhone. And

16:04

my first iPhone, I think

16:06

was like a hand me down from my dad.

16:08

Oh, really? Yeah. And then and then

16:11

I got my first one like on

16:13

contract. I think it was like the iPhone 6

16:15

or something. But

16:18

I got and I was so excited when

16:20

I got it. And today it's

16:22

like it's an extension of my body.

16:25

You know, I even have like the little

16:27

dip in my finger. But

16:32

I'm quite mindful, you know, when I use my phone,

16:34

like I use my phone. I work on it all the

16:36

time, but I try and be mindful and pick up a book

16:39

rather than use my phone, especially like when I'm traveling

16:41

or flying or whatever. But regardless

16:44

of that, I'm on my phone a lot. Right.

16:47

I guess I just kind of want your honest take on

16:49

like, do you think there's an excessive

16:51

phone usage, especially in young

16:54

people? And if so, like

16:57

what can be done about it? I think there is

16:59

an excessive use of the

17:01

smartphone and including the iPhone.

17:04

And that's the reason we came out with screen time. Honestly,

17:07

we wanted we felt like

17:09

the one of the most important things we could

17:11

do was surface the

17:13

amount that you're spending sort

17:16

of similar to what we do on the watch,

17:18

which promotes your ability to

17:21

move more, learn more calories,

17:24

stand more. But on

17:26

the phone, we're looking at that from the opposite

17:28

point of view and saying, do

17:31

you really want to spend five

17:33

hours a day on your phone or whatever

17:35

the number might be? And

17:38

also telling you what you're doing

17:40

on it, where you're spending your time. We

17:43

also did things like surfacing

17:46

how many notifications you get because

17:49

sometimes it's not the amount of time,

17:52

but it's the interruptions. Right.

17:54

And what you mean

17:56

like throughout the day that you keep kind of checking it. It's

17:59

like a.

17:59

That's right. Yeah. And I noticed

18:02

when I remember, uh, when I started

18:05

using the tool before it was released, the

18:08

aha moment for me was

18:10

how many notifications I was getting

18:12

in a day. I was embarrassed

18:15

by the number I was getting in a day. And

18:17

I quickly went and looked

18:20

to see who's sending me all

18:22

of these. And I started cutting out

18:25

different notifications from different groups

18:27

that I felt like, you know, at the end of the day, I could

18:30

catch up on this at the end of the day. Exactly.

18:32

I don't need to know at the moment

18:34

when something is happening. Yeah. And

18:37

so I think screen time is important. And of

18:39

course, for kids, if you're

18:41

a parent, then setting

18:44

some parameters around where

18:46

they're spending time, what apps they're using,

18:49

all of this becomes really important

18:51

and we make tools for all of these things.

18:54

I think that's really important. Sure.

18:57

This year, I feel like more than ever

18:58

we've, uh,

19:01

I don't know, every time we turn on the news, that's kind

19:03

of another like climate disaster.

19:06

Yeah. And I think we're all

19:08

collectively really worried about the climate crisis

19:11

in our respective industries. And I think everyone's

19:13

trying to figure out what the right thing to do is and how

19:15

we can combat everything that's happening.

19:18

And I was just wondering, like, what

19:20

is Apple's climate strategy

19:23

and what do you think are the hardest

19:24

problems to solve? It's a great question.

19:27

Uh, we started running the

19:29

company on a hundred percent renewable

19:31

energy several years ago,

19:34

but we realized this is not sufficient

19:38

that we had to go focus on our supply

19:40

chain, which is largely outside

19:43

of our company and the energy

19:46

that it takes to recharge our products

19:48

at the customer's homes and offices.

19:52

And so we set an objective to

19:54

take all of that cycle,

19:57

the whole product cycle to carbon

19:59

neutral. by 2030, where

20:02

all of our products are carbon neutral. This is 20

20:04

years before the Paris Accord. And

20:07

sorry, carbon neutral is kind of like

20:10

offsetting, right? Carbon

20:12

neutral is a combination of driving

20:14

the carbon away totally,

20:17

and then whatever the residual amount is

20:19

left to offset that by

20:22

planting forest or grasslands

20:25

that pulls carbon from the atmosphere. Okay.

20:28

So if you look at the Apple

20:30

Watch, certain models of the Apple Watch

20:32

that we just shipped a week ago, they're

20:35

carbon neutral now. And this

20:38

happened seven years earlier than

20:40

we had initially thought we could do it. And

20:43

the way that we got there was it

20:46

has a high degree of recycled

20:48

material. And

20:50

so we were in a position

20:53

where we could stop pulling certain

20:55

products from the earth, which creates

20:58

a carbon emissions. We

21:01

have numerous solar farms

21:03

and wind farms on the renewable

21:06

side. And then on the transportation,

21:09

we shrunk our packaging significantly

21:12

so that we could ship more products.

21:15

And we took them out of the air and put

21:17

them on the sea, which is a much

21:19

lower carbon emission transport.

21:23

This got us to reduce the carbon

21:26

footprint by almost 80%, these

21:28

combination of tasks. And

21:31

in the last 20%, we offset

21:33

with high quality offsets

21:35

like planting forest and grasslands.

21:39

And

21:40

sometimes all

21:42

the terminology can be a little bit

21:44

confusing for me to try

21:46

and understand. But okay,

21:48

so we have carbon neutral and

21:51

net zero, and that's kind of like carbon

21:53

neutral. But it includes also

21:55

greenhouse gases. Am

21:58

I right in thinking that? Most people.

21:59

say carbon neutral mean

22:02

that the carbon has been driven to

22:04

the lowest amount currently possible

22:07

and then the balance has been offset.

22:09

Okay. There's some people

22:11

using it a different terminology but that's how

22:13

we use it. Okay

22:15

and that's different to zero

22:18

emissions entirely. Like

22:21

it's like zero emissions where we're

22:23

trying to get to. Yeah. Like is

22:25

that I presume that's the

22:28

goal for the planet. Like how do we

22:31

do that? When I think of zero emissions

22:33

I think of no offsets. Okay.

22:35

When I think of net zero I think

22:37

of offsets included. But is

22:40

there a way to get to zero emissions?

22:42

I think over the long

22:45

arc of time yes I

22:47

think we have to believe that that's possible.

22:50

I think in the short term you need some

22:52

level of offsets to get to

22:55

a carbon neutral. I

22:57

also want to talk about because you were just mentioning

22:59

the recyclable

23:01

product. That's right. As

23:02

I was researching for

23:05

this interview I came across several

23:08

quite frankly distressing articles about

23:10

young kids in the Democratic Republic

23:13

of Congo mining for

23:15

cobalt. And cobalt is something which

23:17

is used in batteries that are used in phones laptops

23:20

and electric cars and

23:22

I know that this

23:23

is a complicated issue for the whole

23:25

of the tech industry but can

23:27

you give me a hundred percent guarantee

23:30

that the cobalt in my new iPhone 15

23:33

has not been mined using child labor in the DRC?

23:35

Yes we can because we do two

23:38

things. Well first of all I should back up and

23:40

say our objective over

23:42

time is to take nothing from the

23:44

earth to

23:45

make our products.

23:48

This is a big idea of

23:50

not having to mine anything is to use all

23:53

recycled material and today

23:55

we're using a hundred percent recycled cobalt

23:58

in the watch.

25:59

right now.

26:30

It's all about making new friends and have lots

26:32

of fun on the way. And hopefully we say friends

26:34

too. Beautiful. Six degrees from Jamie

26:36

and Spencer. This is going to be amazing. Totally on BBC

26:38

Sounds. I don't

26:42

think

26:46

that I've been quite obsessed

26:48

with, I guess, in the tech sphere. Right.

26:51

Is AI. Yes. And

26:54

some days I feel like I've got a really good grasp

26:56

on like the potential of AI and

26:58

other days

26:59

I just haven't got a clue at all.

27:01

I just feel like it's so complex, but

27:04

I think most experts can agree that AI

27:06

is something that's going to completely

27:09

change our world. And it's kind of almost

27:11

like the invention of the internet. And

27:14

I guess you would

27:15

seem in better position than

27:17

most speculate, like how that world

27:20

is going to look like. And I was just

27:22

wondering what your thoughts are on that. I think

27:25

the first thing to know is that

27:27

if you're an Apple customer today,

27:30

AI is in all of

27:32

the products that we produce.

27:35

If you're composing

27:37

a message or an email

27:40

on the phone, you'll see predictive

27:42

typing tries to predict your

27:44

next words and you can quickly choose the word.

27:47

That's AI. And

27:49

so AI is sort of everywhere today.

27:52

What has gathered people's imagination,

27:55

I think more recently is generative AI

27:58

and the use of large language. models

28:01

and I think this is an area that

28:05

is also

28:07

can be life-changing and

28:10

it can be life-changing in a good

28:12

way because it can do things

28:15

like in in the future I don't mean necessarily

28:17

today it can help diagnose

28:20

a problem that you're having from a health point

28:22

of view there's a limitless

28:25

kind of a number of things that AI

28:27

can do unfortunately can also

28:30

do not good things right and

28:32

I know that those are things that I'm like more

28:34

worried about because it seems like

28:35

there's so many great things AI can

28:37

do but then I

28:38

think it also like poses profound

28:41

risks and like a threat to humanity

28:43

and I'm like tell me AI is gonna

28:46

destroy the world yeah what

28:48

is needed in with AI with

28:50

this new form of AI generative AI

28:53

is some rules of the road some

28:55

regulation around this and

28:58

I think many governments around the world

29:00

are now focused on this and focused on how

29:03

to do it and we're trying to help with that and

29:06

we're one of the first ones that that say

29:08

this is needed that some

29:11

regulation is needed for

29:13

us we're very thoughtful and

29:16

deliberate about how we approach these

29:18

things and so we think deeply

29:20

about how people will use our products

29:24

and if they can be used for nefarious

29:27

reasons we don't go down those

29:29

paths our government's

29:32

actually able to

29:33

regulate AI or have we kind

29:36

of gone past that point

29:37

it's a really good question I think

29:40

most governments are little behind

29:43

the curve today I think that's

29:45

a sort of a fair assessment

29:47

to make but I

29:50

think they're quickly catching up I

29:53

think the US the UK

29:55

the EU and several countries in

30:00

Asia are quickly coming

30:03

up to speed. And I do

30:05

think there will be some AI

30:07

regulation in the next 12 to 18 months.

30:11

Okay. And so I'm pretty

30:13

confident that will happen. Yeah, because I think

30:15

it could be a bit catastrophic if it goes rogue

30:18

and there's no controlling. Yeah,

30:21

we need it. We absolutely need it. Yeah,

30:23

it's a real sign of the times.

30:26

It gets the way that things are just completely

30:28

rapidly changing and with

30:29

all the new products as well. I

30:32

mean, when you think about it, like the smartphone has

30:34

entirely changed the world. And

30:38

I guess obviously the internet and now AI

30:40

is going

30:40

to completely change the world. Like,

30:43

what product or technology

30:46

do you think is going to have a similar transformative

30:49

impact in the future?

30:51

And do you think it's going to be an Apple invention?

30:54

We just launched

30:57

in June the Vision

30:59

Pro. You can be sitting

31:01

here in your living room and

31:04

you can have your virtual world

31:07

overlying your physical world.

31:11

And all of a sudden you and I might

31:13

be having this conversation and we

31:15

may want to reference something. You

31:18

could kind of pull it up in space

31:21

and we could chat about it. That's

31:24

fascinating. But you use your hands. You

31:26

use your hands and your eyes. You use your eyes

31:28

as well. And your eyes. And

31:31

so if you just look

31:33

at something on Vision Pro, you

31:36

can select it with your eyes. That's

31:40

fascinating. And it's

31:42

so wild because people

31:45

pick it up like this. They can't believe

31:47

how easy to use it is. But

31:52

we spent years in

31:55

researching and developing this product

31:58

to make it so simple. to

32:00

use that it works like your mind works.

32:04

If you look at something, you kind of expect

32:06

it to do something and it does.

32:10

Yeah, that's fascinating. I mean, how far do you

32:12

think we are from like tech

32:13

actually becoming part of our bodies?

32:16

Like

32:18

do you think we're... In some ways we're

32:21

there because the watch becomes

32:23

a part of your body in a way. Right.

32:26

So, measuring all of these things that you're doing,

32:28

your movement, your stand, your exercise,

32:31

your heart, it's looking

32:33

for things like diseases and

32:36

so forth like asyb that

32:38

you may have in alerting you before

32:41

the symptoms would ever alert you. And

32:43

so, I think wearable tech

32:47

has become an extension of your

32:49

body now. And as you mentioned earlier,

32:52

iPhone in a lot of ways has become

32:54

an extension of you.

32:55

It's a complete extension of my body. So that's why

32:57

I'm like,

32:58

I guess we're probably not so far away of

33:00

just it being a part

33:02

of us. But I always wonder, do

33:05

you think this is going to improve

33:07

the human condition?

33:07

I think it

33:09

must. Technology doesn't

33:12

want to be good or bad. It's

33:16

in the hands of the creator of

33:19

whether it is. And you

33:21

can bet that we're being very thoughtful

33:23

and very deliberate on things

33:26

that we develop. So our technology is for

33:28

good and that it's really enriching

33:31

people's lives, not

33:34

distracting. Yeah.

33:35

Amazing. Really, really cool. I

33:38

mean, I imagine there's so many people

33:40

who are listening to this interview who would

33:43

love to work in the tech industry. And

33:45

I was wondering, like, what tips have you got? Do

33:49

you have to be able to code? Or if I had an English

33:51

degree, like, would I be able to work

33:54

at Apple?

33:55

We hire people

33:57

from all walks of life, people

33:59

that to have college degrees, people

34:02

that don't, people that code,

34:04

people that don't. I do recommend

34:07

coding for everyone to learn

34:10

because I think it's a form of expressing

34:13

yourself. And it's a global

34:15

language and it's the only global language

34:17

that we all share is coding. And

34:20

so I recommend it, but

34:22

we hire people that don't know how to code.

34:26

We hire a lot of people that don't code on a

34:28

daily basis that do other

34:30

things. I think one of the characteristics

34:33

that I look for in people is collaboration

34:36

that we talked about earlier. Can

34:38

they really collaborate? Do they deeply believe

34:40

that one plus one equals three? I

34:43

think curiosity is

34:45

a trait that I love about people,

34:48

about people that ask questions that

34:51

are so curious about how things work,

34:53

how people think, all

34:56

of the whys and hows

34:58

questions. I love

35:00

people that are creative because

35:03

we're looking for people that can see around

35:05

the corner because ultimately we

35:08

want to create products that

35:11

people can't live without, but they didn't know they

35:13

needed.

35:14

Right.

35:15

And you kind

35:16

of want to get ahead of the curve and

35:18

kind of, you know. That's

35:20

right. So all of these traits go into,

35:22

I think, making a great team player.

35:26

I can only imagine that you've done

35:29

pretty well financially at

35:31

Apple. Yes. And that

35:34

you've said that you intend to give away

35:36

a majority

35:37

of your wealth. That's right.

35:40

I guess Bill Gates has made a similar

35:42

pledge and his big vision was to end

35:44

poverty and disease. What's

35:47

the big global challenge that you feel like

35:49

you want to solve and

35:51

how do you plan to do it? You

35:53

know, because of my background and

35:56

equality is a big one. I

36:00

do deeply believe that everyone

36:03

should be treated with dignity and respect around

36:05

the world. And so I'll

36:07

steer a lot of my

36:09

resources accordingly. I

36:12

also want to make sure

36:14

that people that were in a similar or

36:18

are in a similar position to where

36:21

I was, where you're from

36:23

a family without significant

36:27

means that you

36:29

can go to school. And

36:31

because I believe that education is

36:33

the great equalizer of people. And

36:36

so I'll steer some of my money

36:38

to scholarship funds

36:41

as well to make sure that kids in

36:43

those areas can do well

36:46

and have the opportunity that I had,

36:49

frankly.

36:50

That's really cool. I

36:52

mean, there's a lot of ambitious kids

36:54

that

36:55

grow up

36:57

wanting to change the world. And the iPhone

37:00

and Apple's inventions have really changed lives

37:02

across the globe. We still have more to do.

37:04

Yeah, but I'm imagining

37:06

a young Tim Cook growing up in

37:09

Robertsdale, Alabama. Are

37:11

you satisfied with where you are right now? I'm

37:14

incredibly humbled for

37:16

where I am. I feel privileged

37:20

and I want to give back. I

37:23

want to help other people achieve the same

37:25

dream that I've achieved. I

37:28

didn't have a dream to be CEO of Apple.

37:31

It was beyond what I would have ever

37:33

dreamed for myself, but

37:35

it happened and I want to make sure it

37:37

can happen for other people as well. I

37:40

love that. I mean, you've been at Apple

37:42

for 25 years now. Years,

37:44

yes. You're planning to

37:47

be there for the next, I don't know,

37:50

three, four, five years. You're planning on

37:52

staying

37:52

till 2050 and seeing the environmental.

37:55

2050 might be a stretch. You know.

37:59

I don't know how long I'll be there. I

38:02

love it there. And

38:06

I can't envision my life without

38:08

being there. Yeah. And

38:11

so I'll be there for a while. Okay,

38:14

cool. So there's no succession

38:16

plan that you've got? Well, now

38:19

we're a company that believes in

38:21

working on succession plans. And so we

38:23

have very detailed succession

38:25

plans. And because

38:27

something that's unpredictable can always

38:30

happen, I can step off the wrong curve tomorrow.

38:33

And hopefully that doesn't happen. Yeah, hopefully

38:35

that doesn't happen. I pray that it doesn't. No.

38:38

Are you able to say who's in line for succession?

38:41

Oh, I can't say that. But I would

38:44

say my job is to prepare

38:47

several people for

38:51

the ability to succeed. And

38:54

I really want the person

38:56

to come from within Apple, the

38:58

next CEO. And so that's

39:01

my role is to make sure that there's several

39:03

for the board to pick from. Interesting.

39:06

We'll have a look as well and see

39:08

what we can solve. That's cool. Thank

39:11

you. Well, that was great. I

39:13

love, love talking to you about just

39:16

all things, life,

39:17

leadership, tech. And

39:19

I actually, I love to end my conversations with

39:21

a list. Okay. And

39:24

I read about your love of

39:27

national parks and I had the family, you're a very

39:29

keen hiker. Yes, I love

39:31

to hike.

39:31

So I was wondering what are five

39:34

national parks

39:35

to visit in the US? Oh,

39:37

it's a tough list because there's so

39:39

many great ones, but I would say

39:42

Yosemite, which is sort

39:44

of my local national park

39:47

in a way. It's so beautiful. The

39:50

Grand Canyon, beautiful.

39:53

The Grand Teton, Glacier,

39:56

and Zion.

39:58

Okay, so there's a few I haven't been to.

39:59

And they're all

40:02

so special. And when

40:04

you're out in them, it reminds

40:07

you of how small all

40:09

of us are relative to the

40:11

grandeur of nature. And

40:14

it's sort

40:16

of a palate cleanser for the

40:18

mind, being out there

40:21

and hiking and sweating.

40:26

And for me, it's just

40:30

incredibly meditative. And

40:32

I love it. Yeah, that sounds special.

40:35

I got to do more hiking

40:36

and exploring and

40:38

being a bit more outdoorsy, I think. Oh,

40:41

I would highly recommend it. And in Europe,

40:43

this summer I went to the Dolomites. Oh,

40:46

yeah? And the Dolomites were...

40:49

It was just jaw-dropping. I

40:53

was so excited about being there. And

40:55

the hiking

40:58

and the Via Ferratas are

41:01

incredible to do. I

41:03

would highly recommend it. I'm going to go back. So

41:05

cool. Yeah.

41:06

And then my next and last

41:09

list

41:09

is we recently started

41:11

a Service 95 book club. Right. And

41:15

I love to ask my guests about their reading

41:17

pile. Right. Can you share

41:20

five books that have shaped you?

41:22

Yes. As

41:25

a young student to kill a

41:27

mockingbird, and I think it's

41:29

not just for young students, but for all of

41:31

us still, Shoe

41:33

Dog, which was

41:36

Phil Knight's book. And

41:38

it's kind of meant to be a business

41:41

book, but it's a book on life. I

41:43

really like that book. It's really great. When

41:46

Breath Becomes Air was phenomenal.

41:49

Malala's book, I Am Malala. I

41:53

love... And I love Malala's story

41:56

and her passion around

41:58

young girls' education. and

42:02

we work with her and the

42:04

work that she does is incredible. And

42:07

then I love reading biographies of

42:09

Martin Luther King and

42:11

Bobby Kennedy and some of the great people

42:14

that were pushing forward on civil

42:16

rights.

42:17

Tim, thank you so much for your time

42:20

and your generosity. This has just been such

42:22

a fascinating and illuminating

42:25

conversation and I think

42:27

it's going to be amazing for all the listeners. I think they're

42:29

going to have a lot to

42:31

take away from this.

42:33

Thank you so much for coming

42:35

and being here in London and spending some time with

42:37

me today. Thank you for having me. It means

42:39

the world to me. Thanks for having me in your

42:41

beautiful home.

42:42

Any time. Maybe we can do

42:44

this again sometime. Absolutely.

42:45

I'll look forward to it. Thank you so

42:48

much. Thank you. It's 2003

42:50

in Birmingham.

42:57

Doors

43:00

have been slammed in your face. You're not welcome

43:02

here. They were capable of murder and had murder.

43:05

Drive-by killings, gang wars,

43:07

a vigilante group that fought against

43:10

Jamaica's notorious yardee. The homeboys

43:12

fought, but I'm not going to say this anymore. We're going to be

43:14

even more violent than you. Before

43:16

turning on each other. I'm

43:19

Livy Haydock and this is Angster,

43:22

the story of the burg of our boys.

43:25

Listen to BBC sounds.