Apple CEO Tim Cook (Photo : Reuters/Robert Galbraith)
Although many of his friends and co-workers at Apple knew that CEO Tim Cook is gay, he only officially came out almost a year ago in October 2014 at 53.
By standards, that's about 20 or 30 years later than most gay men who come out in their late teens up to their early 30s. Cook says confirming his sexual preference to the public was something like an iPhone owner discovering a feature he has been using for a long time.
"It wasn't a revelation to the people I worked with, but it was to the broader world so I felt a tremendous responsibility to do it," the Sydney Morning Herald quotes Cook's reply to "The Late Show" host Stephen Colbert on Wednesday night.
Even Colbert asked about his gender orientation using technology jargon when he queried if it was "an upgrade, or just a feature that hasn't been turned on before."
Cook, who shares that he has a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy on his desk in Apple since he joined the tech giant in 1998, says coming out was his way of doing things for others. He specifically cited children who are bullied in school because they are gay and kids disowned by their parents.
He says while he valued his privacy, "I felt that I was valuing it too far above what I could do for other people."
Cook wrote in an op-ed in Bloomberg that while he does not deny being gay, he has not publicly confirmed it until last year. "So let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me," the Apple CEO said.
Since then, Cook has attended an LGBT parade, although ahead of the op-ed, CNBC co-anchor Simon Hobbs accidentally outed the Apple CEO in the network's "Squawk on the Street" segment when he asked columnist Jim Stewart, "I think Tim Cook is fairly open about the fact that he's gay at the head of Apple isn't he?"
Stewart replied after a moment of awkward silence, "No. I don't want to comment on anybody who might or might not be," quotes Forbes.
