Tim Cook Delivers Video commencement Address To Ohio State Graduates

Apple CEO Tim Cook has given a video commencement address to graduates at the Ohio State University, where he focused on the past, reviewin...

Apple CEO Tim Cook has given a video commencement address to graduates at the Ohio State University, where he focused on the past, reviewing the history of former US President Franklin Roosevelt, historical poet TS Eliot and American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, and briefly reflecting on what's like to join Apple knowing that he would spend the rest of his life working for Steve Jobs:

When I joined Apple in 1998, I couldn’t believe my luck. I was going to get to spend the rest of my professional life working for Steve Jobs. But fate comes like a thief in the night. The loneliness I felt when we lost Steve was proof that there is nothing more eternal, or more powerful, than the impact we have on others.

Cook also touched on the basis of what he is doing to fill the "odd gaps of time" which he now has at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic:

Not being able to leave the house leaves you with a lot of odd gaps of time to fill. I’ve been trying to use them to read, and I keep coming back to Abraham Lincoln.

I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to put these times into perspective. You’ll be shocked at how clever and funny and alive his thinking still is, how this reserved and humble man managed, in noisy times to call others to hope.

It’s also hard to imagine someone more defined by their circumstances. Lincoln found his country on fire and chose to run into the flames. And he gave everything he had to bring his people — chaotic and squabbling, fundamentally flawed yet fundamentally good — along with him.

The Apple CEO concludes his address by calling on graduates to “build a better future than the one you thought was certain” throughout this “fearful time.

A transcript of Cook’s address can be found here.

You can watch the full Ohio State University Commencement livestream here.