It’s been 19 months since the death of Steve Jobs, the Apple founder, and Jobs’ choice of Tim Cook to replace him as CEO has had many people questioning his judgment — that is, until last week.
Although Jobs groomed Cook for years, Cook’s public persona often fell flat: His attempts at mimicking Jobs’ much-watched keynotes came off as one-notes.
The fact that Apple stock has skidded 21 percent in the past year added to the perception that Cook might not be up to the job. That image was distressing to Apple employees and others who had seen just how impressive Cook came across in most other contexts.
Well, leave it to the United States Senate to provide the venue Cook needed to show his stuff — and on national television, no less.
In what has to be one of the most bizarre recent adventures in political navel-gazing, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hauled Cook up to Capitol Hill last week to defend Apple’s tax strategy, which, like its products, is both legal and efficient.
As Jobs did in building a $416 billion business based on exploiting the weakness of unnecessary complexities built into the products of its competitors, so too does Apple take advantage of our Byzantine tax code. Nothing illegal, just smart business.
In fact, all of Apple’s maneuvers to avoid paying taxes twice on money earned overseas shouldn’t raise eyebrows but rather underscore the absurdity of the tax code that the inquiring senators had helped create.
And underscore that point is exactly what Cook did, in a presentation that proved he was the smartest person in the room. “Long Tim Cook, short John McCain,” tweeted one observer, referring to the 78-year-old Arizona Republican senator’s question on why he has to keep updating the apps on his iPhone. By that point, Cook had won the day, his image as the right person to lead Apple post-Jobs newly burnished.
In the midst of the hearing, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), another 78-year-old, pointed to his iPad and declared with a wonder only septuagenarians can now muster: “Even my granddaughter knows how to use it!” If only we were able say the same about our tax code.