Tom Cook background

WAR EAGLE! With Steve Jobs stepping aside, the spotlight turns to Tim Cook. The Alabama native majored in industrial engineering at Auburn, and after graduating in 1982, he earned his master's in business administration at Duke. The upwardly mobile Silicon Valley exec was being groomed to become a top executive at Compaq Computers when Jobs recruited him in 1998, the Wall Street Journal notes. A fitness fanatic who often arrives at the gym by 5 a.m., Cook had been known to quote Lance Armstrong in Apple meetings. engineering grad (class of 1982), Cook is also a workaholic whose only interests outside of Apple appear to be cycling, the outdoors, and Auburn football. Gawker's guide to Cook is handy: He appears to subsist on energy bars, and is said to be "calm, quiet—and deadly." As CEO, Cook may also be able to call himself "the most powerful gay man in America," as Gawker puts it. While Cook has never publicly discussed his sexuality, he was recently named the most powerful gay person in America by Out magazine—and that was before he became CEO. (8/25a)