Steve Jobs hired Tim Cook in 1997 to help bring Apple back from the brink of bankruptcy to being the highly profitable company it had been until Microsoft Windows-based PCs took the home and business computer industry by storm. It was a daunting task. Cook’s role as Leader of Operations came with the responsibility of streamlining manufacturing and distribution processes for the entire company. He had a huge mess on his hands. Commenting on Apple’s operations, one thirty-year veteran with the company admitted, “We were terrible at it. Terrible at managing costs of it. Terrible at managing inventory. Terrible at managing billables.” If the new Leader of Operations failed at his job, the entire company would likely collapse.
According to Tim Cook’s biographer Leander Kahney, Cook was a genius in his new role. Under his leadership, he significantly reduced costly inventory, eliminated redundant suppliers, convinced some suppliers to move closer to Apple’s production plants, began outsourcing as much as possible, and overhauled distribution of product. Did his efforts pay off? Well, when he started with Apple 22 years ago, the company’s stock was trading at $3.56 a share. As I write, that share is worth $264.82. Translation: If you purchased $1000 worth of Apple shares when Tim Cook was hired, you might have been considered pretty foolish. But those shares would be worth over $600,000 today. In other words, in terms of Apple’s corporate success, yes, Tim Cook’s efforts were hugely successful. No wonder shortly before his death, Steve Jobs hand picked Cook to replace him as CEO of the tech giant.
While reading Kahney’s biography, I couldn’t help admiring the genius involved that orchestrates the acquiring the hundreds of different pieces that go into an iPhone, having all those pieces show up at just the right time for production, assembling each phone by hand, testing, packaging, and shipping more than 10,000 iPhones per day. Particularly fascinating is the Chinese company charged with iPhone production, Foxconn. As Kahney describes it, “Foxconn’s factories are almost unimaginable in scale. They are enormous complexes, complete with sleeping quarters, restaurants, hospitals, supermarkets, and swimming pools packed into…a 2.3-square-kilometer space. They are more like factory towns….” One of these “towns” employs 250,000 people. Each assembly line in the factory complex is longer than a football field, with sixty or more stations per line, each charged with one step in putting a phone together.
By the time the final product rolls off the line, hundreds of hands have been involved in putting it together. Add to that the thousands of other hands required in getting scores of ingredients from places all over the world, shipped at just the right time in just the right quantity so they show up at the factory when production begins. For instance, I read the other day about cobalt mines in Congo that employ young children to work long, hard days picking up rocks by hand and carrying bags of the cobalt-laden rocks to be processed—a deplorable practice, by the way. A few grains of the powdery product ends up in every cell-phone battery.
Whether you have an iPhone or some other smartphone, the production process is quite similar. Take a moment to look at that device sitting next to you. Ponder what must have been involved in putting that device together so that you can talk to a friend, text your husband to stop at the store for bread, snap a selfie to post on Facebook through your phone’s app, and so on. Isn’t it amazing?
Now, put the phone down and look outside. Or go take a walk in the woods, but stop frequently. Look at that tree with its dead leaves hanging on for dear life. And you know in a few months, replacements will bud and that tree will be full again. What all is involved in that tree being in that place at this particular time? Or watch the squirrel as he scampers away from you, climbs halfway up a nearby tree, stops, and looks back to see if you’re coming. What all is involved in that skittish, bushy-tailed rodent’s existence on the planet?
In the biblical book of Job, the man after whose name the book is titled had a terribly devastating few days—lost nearly everything except his life, wife, and a few friends. His poor wife, who lost everything as Job did save her health, suggested her physically suffering, emotionally distraught husband curse God and die. The friends came for a visit and probably should’ve just stayed home. “This is all your fault,” they opined. “If you weren’t such a terrible sinner, none of this would’ve happened to you!” Naturally, Job insisted he didn’t deserve any of it. Further, he pined for a chance to bring his case before God himself, ask Him what was the deal.
Finally God showed up, but didn’t give Job a chance to make his appeal. Instead, He told Job to look around, asked him, “Where were you when I made all this—the earth, the stars, the sea, the day-and-night cycle, the snow and hail and rain and lightning? Look at the animals—the lion, its prey, wild goats, deer, donkeys, the rhinoceros, peacocks, a horse, grasshopper, hawk and eagle, behemoth and leviathan—what did you have to do with their existence and survival?” And then this penetrating question, “Will you condemn me that you may be righteous? Do you have an arm like God?”
Job got the point. He was looking at one infinitesimal fragment of a vast universe created and orchestrated by the Chief Operations Officer. Unable to see beyond the small circle of his life, he did what comes naturally to us all. Ah, but realizing there are so many more unseen components that go into the operation of this vast universe, and then getting a tiny glimpse into the infinite Genius who is not only its Creator but also Sustainer—the Chief Operations Officer, if you will—led him to a far different response.
“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.… I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.… I had heard of you by the hearing of my ear, but now my eyes see you; therefore, I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:2-6
Tim Cook’s organizational genius is indeed amazing; what he has accomplished—and continues to accomplish—is impressive. Far more praiseworthy and humbling is the genius and accomplishment of the Chief Operations Officer who gave Tim Cook his mind and abilities that he might share in a tiny bit of the operations of this vast universe for a few moments in time. What’s more, the same Officer is involved in the everyday operations of my life, even though its much more obscure and far less genius!
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