Much has been said and written over the years about the post-Steve Jobs era of Apple and whether CEO Tim Cook’s operations-heavy approach to running the iPhone maker has proved more or less successful than Jobs’ at times cutthroat dealmaking and his obsessive, detail-oriented product development.
It’s hard to argue now that Cook hasn’t taken Apple to all-new heights — the company is more valuable than it’s ever been, and the wondrous success of the iPhone over the last decade has allowed Apple to build hugely successful secondary businesses around the Apple Watch, AirPods, the iPad, and much more. But how exactly Cook, a logistics expert with deep ties to Asia and a much more measured temperament than his former boss, pulled this off is…