Interesting is that Art Levinson will remain Chairman at Apple. Apparently the two giants are working together here.
> Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, said: “For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am excited to see the results.”
I think there's a pretty big misconception about Silicon Valley executives hating each other. (My guess is this comes from our media-driven obsession with the good vs. evil narrative.) In reality, a lot of these companies aren't that different, and the skills+personalities+struggles of CEOs are actually remarkably similar.
They might have different opinions or frustration with the competition, but most of what they focus on is not letting the company die from the inside. i.e: AOL/Palm/HP/Netscape couldn't innovate and imploded.
Eric Schmidt was on Apple's board up until the day shareholders (implicitly) deemed it to be a conflict of interest. I'm sure he was a great asset for Apple learning the importance of internet services. It's a shame that short-sighted investors are too captivated by competition to realize how cooperative Silicon Valley really is. There are only a handful of situations in tech where crushing your competition is actually a positive strategic move.
> Tim Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Apple, said: “For too many of our friends and family, life has been cut short or the quality of their life is too often lacking. Art is one of the crazy ones who thinks it doesn’t have to be this way. There is no one better suited to lead this mission and I am excited to see the results.”