Tim Cook Says Apple At 50 Is ‘At A Party’ That Can’t Be Repeated

David Pogue, author of the new book Apple: The First 50 Yearsinterviewed Apple CEO Tim Cook for CBS’s “Sunday Morning” program ahead of the company’s upcoming 50th anniversary.

Tim Cook hopes Steve Jobs’ principles will be Apple’s DNA 200 years from now

Apple, founded in 1976, will be 50 years old on April 1.

Apple as a company needs to “build new muscle” to embrace the half-century milestone, Cook says.

Apple is instead focused on “the next thing and improving on something that exists today,” Cook says. “And, you know, trying to look around the corner and give people something they didn’t know they wanted, and so it was different.”

A key part of this exercise is to reflect Steve Jobs, who died in 2011.

Cook says the “principles (Jobs) set for the company” of focusing on enriching their lives and reinventing things “still live on today.”

Cook also says that it was a gift to me that Jobs avoided the Disney problem (after Walt was no longer around to run the company he founded) and left him wondering what Steve would do after he was gone and advising him not to let the company sink.

However, Cook says Steve’s “principles are the DNA of this company 50 years from now, and I’m looking forward to 100 years and 200 years into the future because they’re incredible.”

As for Apple in 2026, Tim Cook says the company is in for a party:

“I think Apple is a very unique place. It can’t be duplicated. That’s how I feel. I know a lot of different companies and I think Apple is just in a party.”