Apple CEO Tim Cook is gay, and now the whole world knows. That's a major step forward for corporate culture, but there's still a long way to go.
An important announcement
In an Oct. 30 piece published by Bloomberg Businessweek, Tim Cook made the following announcement: "While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven't publicly acknowledged it either, until now. So let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me."
As a company, Apple is well known for the media storm that accompanies its product announcements, but Cook's personal announcement eclipsed even these in terms of Internet attention. Seemingly within an instant of his article being published, the Internet emitted a collective "Hurrah!" and the congratulations started flowing in. It was one of those rare moments where people online became genuinely united in appreciation and support (well, except for Russia – but we'll get to that later). But Cook's announcement did more than bring the Internet together. It also set an important precedent for business culture.
Cook's coming out should represent a big corporate step
Believe it or not, Cook is actually the first CEO of a Fortune 500 company to be openly gay, as MSNBC reported. Now the question becomes whether or not Cook's announcement will set an important enterprise precedent as far as the sexuality of corporate leaders goes, or whether the news will be the kind that has its fleeting moment before business culture falls comfortably back into the status quo. Here's hoping this latter path isn't the one we go down.
You see, for all the technological advances big businesses are making these days, it seems that there's not a commensurate push for social progress at the top of the corporate ladder. Indeed, the fact that Cook is the first openly gay Fortune 500 CEO isn't the only rather dispiriting thing about this largely homogenous group. Here are some other statistics about these 500 people that Forbes contributor Dorie Clark pointed out:
- Four percent are female.
- A mere one percent are black.
Cook's coming out definitely represents progress, but his is also just one name on a list of 500 that isn't remotely representative of the population at large. In this way, the hoopla surrounding Cook's announcement is almost as dispiriting as it is invigorating, because it points to the fact that we still live in a world where any departure from corporate heteronormativity is a really big deal. And in that way, our country still has a long way to go – and a lot of diversifying to do – before we can be satisfied with our enterprise atmosphere.
Then again, we're not Russia
For all the praise Cook's announcement garnered in the United States, it was met with a decidedly sour response in Russia. As NBC reported, a public monument of an iPhone – which had been erected in Moscow in 2013 as a tribute to Steve Jobs – was promptly removed in the wake of Cook's article. In a statement rife with hateful language, ZEFS – the group of Russian companies that had put up the monument – denounced Apple and said the monument was taken down because of the threat it supposedly posed in "promoting denial of traditional family values."
ZEFS head Maxim Dolgopolov took the vitriol further, according to Buzzfeed, arguing that Apple products now represent a vice more dangerous than drugs or cigarettes. With prejudice like this on display, the need to harness Cook's announcement to change corporate culture for the better has never been more acute.
