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Steve Jobs told Apple CEO Tim Cook: Never to stay ‘married' to ..., a skill he says he learnt late, but is very thankful for
Apple CEO
Tim Cook
said that
Steve Jobs
gave him a crucial skill that only 'few people have' and he learnt late – the ability to change one's mind instantly when new facts emerge. In a 2024 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Cook revealed that Job – co-founder of Apple taught him never to stay 'married to my past views' and to let go of pride when better evidence appears. Jobs, Cook recalled, could shift direction in a snap—something that surprised him at first but later became a trait he admired and adopted.
'[I learned] not to be so proud you can't change your mind when you're presented with new evidence,' Cook said in the interview. This flexible mindset, according to those close to Jobs, was powered by strong emotional intelligence.
In Steve Jobs's biography, author
Walter Isaacson
wrote that Jobs had the ability to "size people up, understand their inner thoughts, and hurt them at will," highlighting how his emotional intelligence could be both inspiring and cutting.
Steve Jobs' leadership mindset inspired Jeff Bezos, John Ive, Marc Benioff
Many former Apple colleagues say this mix of intensity and intuition helped revive the company from near collapse and shaped its culture of bold innovation. The practice also echoes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's belief that 'people who are right a lot change their mind a lot'—a mindset linked to strong decision-making.
Jobs's influence extended well beyond Tim Cook. Former Apple designer Jony Ive once called Jobs 'the most remarkably focused person' he'd ever met, describing his focus as an 'every-minute' discipline.
Salesforce
CEO Marc Benioff also credited a pivotal 2010 conversation with Jobs for inspiring the product focus that helped build Salesforce into a $250 billion company.
In an 2019 interview, Benioff reflected how a single meeting in 2003 left a lasting impression on the Salesforce CEO, who credits Jobs for planting the seed of what would become the company's app marketplace. Jobs urged the Salesforce founders to build a cloud software ecosystem—an idea that eventually led to the creation of AppExchange.
Years later, when Jobs launched the iPhone App Store in 2008, Benioff was so moved by his words, 'I give you App Store,' that he handed over the domain to Apple as a tribute.
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