Tony Fadell was previously the senior vice president of the iPod division at Apple. He left several years before Tim Cook became CEO, but he did say that Cook was chosen to become CEO despite not having a product design background but that he was capable of rethinking many things in an innovative way.
"It wasn’t just because he could run a spreadsheet," Fadell said. Cook had all-rounder experience in operations, sales, and customer support, Fadell said.