Tim Cook says late Apple cofounder Steve Jobs gave him this unforgettable advice before handing over the reins as CEO: ‘Never ask what I would do’

Many companies are inextricably tied to their iconic founders—from Mark Zuckerberg being the face of Meta , to Warren Buffett leading Berkshire Hathaway for decades.

But when it came time for Tim Cook to take the reins of Apple , the brand’s late cofounder Steve Jobs instructed him to forge his own path at the now-$5 trillion trillion giant.

The advice continues to inspire the tech company’s leaders 15 years after Jobs’ passing.

“[Jobs’] advice to me was ‘Never ask what I would do, just do the right thing,’” Cook told CBS Sunday Morning in an interview earlier this year .

It was a lesson that Jobs had learned while working with Disney —the Apple cofounder was also one of the three founding fathers of Pixar Animation Studios , purchasing the group from LucasFilm in 1986.

Entertainment behemoth Disney later acquired Pixar in 2006, and during his work at the company, Jobs picked up on a trend.

“He had watched Disney go through this paralysis of sitting around and talking about what Walt [Disney] would do,” Cook explained.

“And he did not want that for Apple.” The former Apple CEO explained that at the time, the business had never had a “professional transition” at the chief executive level; the previous successions were always done in a time of “panic.” However, Jobs wanted to do things differently this time.

So he called Cook over to his house and offered him the CEO job—with no pressure to emulate his leadership style.

“I’ll never forget that and it was such a gift for me, because he took off of my shoulder this question of, ‘What would Steve do?’” Cook continued.

“I just put my head down and thought, ‘I’m going to be the best version of myself.’” Cook brought his own flair, but stuck to these core principles Cook first joined Apple in 1998 after stints at PC-maker Compaq and IBM , less than one year after Jobs had returned as interim CEO.

From 2000 onwards, Jobs would lead as the permanent CEO, while Cook worked his way up to high-level positions, becoming the COO in 2005.

At the start of September this year, he stepped down from CEO role, and John Ternus took his place in the top job .

Over Cook’s nearly three decades at the company, working under Jobs until his passing in October 2011, he learned what principles are essential to the “DNA” of the company.