I worked at Korn Ferry in San Francisco at the very end of the Dot-com bubble. As a new Principal in the firm I was asked to assist one of the partners on a CEO search for a public tech company. Being newly relocated to the Bay Area, I decided to introduce myself to some of the tech industries senior most executives by trying to recruit them for this CEO position. That is where my path and Tim Cook’s path crossed.

Tim Cook was the SVP of Operations for Apple at that time. His reputation then was pretty much as it is now – - a very strong operationally leader who knew how to get things done. With Steve Jobs at the helm of Apple I had hoped that Tim would at least take my call. After all, I was recruiting for a CEO position with a top tech company.

Getting to Tim was ridiculously hard. I had to make a number of calls to get his direct office line. I gave the number a ring and got Tim’s assistant. She asked why I wanted to speak with Tim and I told her I wanted to see if he’d be interested in speaking with me about a CEO position. She just laughed, said Tim would not be interested and hung up the phone.

Not one for taking “no” for an answer, I called Tim’s office back the next day. Same result. I then called every day for the next 2 weeks. What did I have to lose? Finally, Tim’s admin relented. She told me Tim would meet me for dinner at a small café in Palo Alto.

Tim and I met for an early dinner the following week. It’s been quite a few years so I don’t remember the name of the restaurant but I do remember that the meal and conversation were quite good. Over dinner we talked about the state of the tech industry, why he decided to join Apple and why it would be difficult to impossible for him to leave.

After 2 hours I paid the check, shook Tim’s hand and headed home. Obviously I was not successful in recruiting Tim away from Apple. I did, however, prove that being persistence does pay off.  My persistence gave me the opportunity to break bread with one of the real titans within the tech industry and is a trait that I try to instill in all of the folks who work at SL8Z.