Mike Janes worked with Tim, and is now CEO of an event ticket site called FanSnap:
"A number of us had tickets to see the Mets that night. After hours, he was still drilling us with question after question, while we were watching the clock like kids in school. I still have this vision of Tim saying, 'Okay, next page,' as he opened yet another energy bar. Needless to say, we missed the Mets game."
Steve Doil, who worked in Cook's operations group before moving to Texas for family reasons:
"He'll ask you ten questions. If you answer them right, he'll ask you ten more. If you do this for a year, he'll start asking you nine questions. Get one wrong, and he'll ask you 20 and then 30."
Debbie Shaw, head of Auburn's alumni association:
"Let's just say we have our fair share of alumni who like the recognition. Tim's not one of them."
Gina Gloski, a Boston-based semiconductor consultant, graduated from Auburn the same year and in the same industrial and systems engineering program:
"Tim's just not a real social person. He's not anti-social, either. He just never seemed that interested in other people. I'm a hugger and a kisser, but I'd never feel comfortable giving Tim a hug or a kiss."
Toni Sacconaghi, Apple analyst at brokerage firm Sanford C. Bernstein, before Tim's appointment as CEO:
"By default Tim Cook would be the logical guy. Yet that hasn't been spelled out. And the stakes are just higher at Apple, because Steve is larger than life, and Tim isn't a known quantity."
"Though he's capable of mirth, Cook's default facial expression is a frown, and his humor is of the dry variety. In meetings he's known for long, uncomfortable pauses, when all you hear is the sound of his tearing the wrapper of the energy bars he constantly eats.
"Like everyone else at Apple, Cook dresses casually in jeans, his graying hair cropped close in the style of Lance Armstrong, whom he idolizes. (Through a friend, Armstrong says he doesn't know Cook, though he's "heard he's a good dude.") Perhaps Cook's only notable sartorial flourish is that he always wears shoes from Nike, where he's on the board of directors. (Jobs, another sneaker wearer, is a New Balance man.)
CNN Money/Fortune:
"Cook's stamina is the stuff of legend at Apple. He often begins emailing the executives who work for him at 4:30 a.m.; worldwide conference calls can take place at any time of day. For years, Cook held a standing Sunday night staff meeting by telephone in order to prepare for yet more meetings on Monday morning."
"Mr Cook is an industry veteran who spent more than a decade with IBM, before he was lured by Mr Jobs to join Apple in the late 1990s. Given the task of turning around the fortunes of the company, which was on the brink of collapse at the time, he made some drastic - and highly effective- decisions.
BBC News:
"Mr Cook, a fitness fanatic and outdoor enthusiast, is said to be a great believer in intuitive decisions: it is this knack for doing the right thing that has won him the trust of Mr Jobs and Apple's board of directors."
Silicon Valley investor who travels in the Apple orbit:
"Nobody would make Tim Cook CEO. That's laughable. They don't need a guy who merely 'gets stuff done.' They need a brilliant product guy, and Tim is not that guy. He is an ops guy - at a company where ops is outsourced."
