“Your values matter; they are your north star," Cook, the CEO of Apple, said during a moving commencement speech at George Washington University on Sunday. "Work takes on new meaning when you feel you are pointed in the right direction. Otherwise it's just a job. and life is too short for that.”
"You don’t have to choose between doing good and doing well," he added. "It's a false choice, today more than ever."
That lesson is one Cook said he learned 17 years ago when he first met Apple's visionary cofounder Steve Jobs, who convinced him to leave his job at Compaq and join what Cook described as a "rudderless" company, with a pitch about building a powerful new line of products and working to change the world.
“I always figured that work was work. Values had their place. And yes there were things that I wanted to change about the world, but I thought I would have to do that in my own time, not in the office," Cook recalled. "Steve didn’t see it that way. He was an idealist."
Idealist" may not be the first word that comes to mind when thinking of the mercurial Jobs, but Cook says that attitude toward work and impact re-kindled his own sense of idealism and values.
Surrounded by the sweeping backdrop of the National Mall in D.C., Cook opened up about growing up in rural Alabama at a time when segregation was still sanctioned and the role of slavery in the Civil War was largely left out of school textbooks. In the summer of 1977, Cook won an essay contest — written by hand because he couldn't afford a typewriter — which led to him meeting two towering and opposing figures of the south: George Wallace, the Alabama governor who helped prop up segregation, and President Jimmy Carter, a vocal supporter of equal rights.
Meeting my governor was not an honor for me ... Shaking his hand felt like a betrayal of my beliefs," Cook said in his speech, citing personal heroes like Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. “I came face to face with two men who had guaranteed their place in history
For all those reasons, the university awarded the CEO an honorary doctorate for public service. In his speech, however, Cook focused less on his personal attempts to affect change and instead honed in on how the technology that Jobs helped create has made good on that pitch 17 years ago to change the world. Smartphones and tablets, he argued, are helping the blind, improving education and shedding light on unfair treatment around the world.
“People who see injustice and want to expose it — now they can because they have a camera in their pocket all the time," he said.
Cook ended his speech on Sunday exactly as you might expect from a technology executive: He took a photo of all the graduates with his iPhone.
Credit: Mashable
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