Name: Tech Debate: Tim Cook Comes Out As Gay
Uploaded: 2014-10-30
Duration: 1 min 49 s
Description: TECHDEBATE103014 Web

Apple's Chief Executive Tim Cook recently revealed in an essay in Bloomberg Business Week that he's gay. Phil, does that even matter in 2014? It does not matter one iota to Apple's, you know, sales. You know, he might loose a couple customers in Russia. [ LAUGH ] Including the tycoon who said that Apple products should be banned. But more importantly this is likely to help Apple in terms of positioning it as a company that really lives out what it says in terms of espousing diversity. It's certainly not been a secret in Silicon Valley, right? We've kind of known Tim Cook to be gay for a long time. He's just not acknowledged it. And in fact, even this year he walked in the San Fransisco Pride Parade. The question is whether or not his announcement is going to set in motion kind of a domino effect through the rest of the Fortune 500 because. As far as I know, he is the only executive in the current 500 to publicly acknowledge that he is gay. Well that remains to be seen. You know, it's a conservative [ UNKNOWN ] but certainly with, for Mr. Cook's example, he is showing that a company that happens to be the most valuable in the world in terms of market cap can have a gay CEO. Right. It's a bold decision. He was definitely lauded for it. Mark Zuckerberg came out and said, good on you. Satya Nadella, did the same. John Legere, the CEO of T- Mobile. BUt at the same time, there's a huge gap in this country. You know, on one hand, Fortune 500 companies, the vast majority, 91 % ban sexual discrimination. On the other hand, you can get fired. For this in half of US states. So it's really crazy. Well in fact it is a little crazy. I think you know when you think of somebody like Tim Cook in some companies and where he could be fired and that company that's firing him has deprived themselves of that skill. But the companies that you mentioned, plus you think of Goldman- Sachs. Apple. All of these companies have gone out of there way to tell people, we welcome LGBT workers. Right. Which has become, in a way, a litmus test for the most talented people in any industry. Right. That's a fair point. For one show that's always honest, come to www. fortune. com for more tech debate.