Tim Cook makes it on Time’s list of 100 Most Influential People

Apple CEO Tim Cook has made it on the list of 100 Most Influential People published annually by Time magazine. Apple’s late co-founder, of course, used to be regularly featured in various popularity charts that list iconoclasts, celebrities and entrepreneurs.

However, this is the first time the magazine included 51-year-old Cook on their list. Even more interesting than that, Apple board member, a former U.S. Vice President and environmental activist Al Gore penned a short and sweet description of Cook for the magazine…

Here’s Gore’s report card on Jobs:

It is difficult to imagine a harder challenge than following the legendary Steve Jobs as CEO of Apple. Yet Tim Cook, a soft-spoken, genuinely humble and quietly intense son of an Alabama shipyard worker and a homemaker, hasn’t missed a single beat.

Fiercely protective of Jobs’ legacy and deeply immersed in Apple’s culture, Cook, 51, has already led the world’s most valuable and innovative company to new heights while implementing major policy changes smoothly and brilliantly.

He has indelibly imprinted his leadership on all areas of Apple — from managing its complex inner workings to identifying and shepherding new “insanely great” technology and design breakthroughs into the product pipeline.

Cook’s personal discipline, physical regimen and work hours reflect a philosophy summarized in his 2010 Auburn University commencement speech, in which he quoted President Lincoln: “I will prepare, and someday my chance will come.”

Highly ethical and always thoughtful, he projects calmness but can be tough as nails when necessary. Like the great conductor George Szell, Cook knows that his commitment to excellence is inseparable from the incredible ensemble he leads at Apple. Szell was noted for saying, “We begin where others leave off.”

Cook’s chance has come. What a beginning!

Who else of interest made it on the list?

How about Rihanna?

No seriously, the editors apparently think she’s among the hundred people in this world that wield the greatest influence.

As for me, I prefer Adele.

On a more serious note, Steve Jobs’ authorized biographer Walter Isaacson is listed as an influential person. Madeleine K. Albright praised Isaacson’s “trio of brilliant works about men of genius — Franklin, Einstein and Jobs”.

Other notables include Serbian tennis player Novak Djokovic, hacker group Anonymous, Facebook’s op-chief Sheryl Sandberg and the web browser creator and investor Marc Andreesen.

The complete list of Time’s 100 Most Influential People is available here.

By the way, as noted by the iDownloadblog editor Sebastian Page, Time’s list of The 100 Most Influential People in the WORLD should really be called The 100 Most Influential People in the United States.

Thoughts?