Steve Jobs Told Cook ‘Just Do What’s Right’

When Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook took the microphone at a memorial tribute to Steve Jobs at the company’s campus last week, he shared a piece of advice Jobs gave him before his death on Oct. 5. “Among his last advice he had for me, and for all of you, was to never ask what he would do. ‘Just do what’s right,’” Cook said.

Jobs wanted Apple to avoid the trap that Walt Disney Company fell into after the death of its iconic founder, Cook said, where “everyone spent all their time thinking and talking about what Walt would do.” For Apple, which Jobs co-founded at age 21 and built into the world’s most valuable technology company, that’s easier said than done. The challenge for Cook and his executive team will be to maintain Jobs’s legacy without being hobbled by it, said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean at the Yale University School of Management.