Fascinating read on Tim Cook.

Tim Cook likes Lance Armstrong and Nike:

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.)

Good to know:

Another factor that would help Cook - or any successor, frankly - is that Jobs has been on such a creative tear: It's well known that Apple maintains a top-secret pipeline of products it intends to roll out in the next few years. Were Jobs no longer around, Apple could live off those products for some time.

Why didn't I think of that?

It's not as if Cook is ignorant about products and marketing; he's getting an education in those fields at Nike. John Connors, a fellow Nike director, says Cook contributes to the Nike board on e-commerce initiatives and the "customer experience" in Nike's stores - as well as in overall perceptiveness. "Almost invariably he'll have an insight where, after he shares it with you, you'll say, 'Huh, why didn't I think of that?'" he says. Connors, a Seattle venture capitalist and a former chief financial officer of Microsoft, calls Cook the "General Petraeus of the corporate world," the "kind of guy who lets his results speak for themselves."