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Tim Cook 'crazy' to join Apple
Tue, 4th Jun 2013
FYI, this story is more than a year old

"I talked to people I trusted and they said this was not what you should do. You're crazy."

That was the advice offered to Tim Cook when he was approached by Steve Jobs to join Apple in the late 1990s.

The rest they say, is sweet tech history.

Returning to Duke University's School of Business in North Carolina to speak with students, Cook recalled the moment he decided to join the Silicon Valley firm, and insisted it was all down to his "intuition."

After recently joining thriving PC company Compaq, the world's biggest at the time, Cook left his role to join Jobs, in a move his closet friends branded crazy.

"I remember forming my list of pluses and minuses and I could not get the chart to work out the way I wanted to," Cook said.

"Because I wanted the list to say I should go to Apple, but it would not."

But after ignoring the facts, figures and opinions of others, Cook made the move, to a company where he now reigns supreme as CEO.

Speaking ahead of the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 10 in San Francisco, Cook's hour-long interview showed a different side to the normally reserved chief executive.

Cook has been under the media spotlight recently, after defending the company's level of innovation since he took over, insisting “several more game changers” would enter the market.

Speaking amid claims the Cupertino firm is struggling under his guidance, Cook remained defiant, hinting that wearable computers could be one of the many tricks up Apple's sleeve.

“It's an area where it's ripe for exploration,” said Cook last week, speaking at the All Things Digital conference in California.

“It's ripe for us all getting excited about. I think there will be tons of companies playing in this.

Overseeing Apple's rise to become the world's most valuable company, and subsequently its drop back down to earth, during the interview Cook's brands his journey as unpredictable.

"For me the journey was not predictable at all. You have to find your own north star and stay with your north star."

Check out the a clip of the interview below: