As CEO of the world’s most valuable company, Tim Cook can pick and choose where he gives interviews. Which is why it’s kind of cool that he just gave an interview to high school student Rebecca Kahn.
In an article published by the National Center for Women & Information Technology, Kahn recalls her experience speaking Tim Cook — and the unlikely way it all came about.
Kahn says she started off by emailing Tim Cook as part of an assignment for her computer class. “It was my senior year, and I wanted to interview not just a real leader in technology, but one whose philosophy and ideas about life were motivating as well,” she writes. “As soon as the assignment was announced, one name immediately came to mind: Apple CEO Tim Cook. He is not just in charge of the world’s largest tech company, but he personally advocates and stands up for things he believes are right.”
Amazingly, Cook actually took the time to email back and set up a time to speak with the high school student. She notes that Cook started the interview by telling her to, “Call me Tim — Mr. Cook is my father’s name.”
During their conversation, he shared his thoughts on wanting kids to start coding at a young age, and his belief that society and companies can improve when “everybody is treated with dignity and respect.”
Apple, he said, is “all about doing just a few things, but the few things that we do, we want to make the very best in the world. Because we believe those make a much larger difference in the world than if we were to focus on just making the most.”
In addition, Cook described German chancellor Angela Merkel as a, “phenomenal leader not only for Germany but the world,” and expressed his admiration for Rosa Parks as “quite the hero” who, “accelerated the civil rights act by years” with her courage.
While there’s little in the interview that Cook hasn’t expressed elsewhere, it’s pretty great that he would make himself accessible to a high school student in order to offer a few words of wisdom. Like his predecessor, Steve Jobs, Tim Cook takes the time to answer emails from customers — and has a publicly available email address in order to do so.
