The story of Apple's strong management may begin with Steve Jobs, but it certainly doesn't end there. Apple enjoys a deep bench of executive talent--one of the reasons the company has thrived in recent years.

A complete list of the people critical to Apple's success would fill page after page. We've focused on just a half-dozen executives--if you don't already know their names, you probably should learn them now.

1. Tim Cook, chief operating officer

While Steve Jobs enjoys a reputation for having a hand in everything that happens at Apple, behind the scenes Tim Cook is just as involved in the details. Apple's chief operating officer is responsible for every aspect of Apple's supply chains, sales, and support services in addition to overseeing the Mac division. An October 2006 profile in the Wall Street Journal described Cook as a "low-key operator making sure the company runs smoothly behind the scenes." He joined Apple 10 years ago, taking charge of Mac manufacturing and smoothing out the inefficiencies in the process. As the years went on, Cook added more responsibilities before becoming COO in October 2005. The fruits of his labors can be seen in Apple's sales figures--the company has sold a record number of Macs in four of the last five quarters.

2. Eddy Cue, vice president of Internet Services

How do you know when somebody's a go-to guy within Apple? When Steve Jobs calls on that person to fix a high-profile product whose launch was marred by technical glitches and widespread user complaints. That's the situation Eddy Cue finds himself in with MobileMe. After Apple's rebranded version of .Mac stumbled out of the gate, Jobs, in a memoacknowledging that MobileMe "was simply not up to Apple's standards," turned responsibility for the subscription-based service to Cue, who now holds the newly created title of vice president of Internet Services. "Eddy has been brought in to fix it," wrote former Apple employee Chuq Von Rospach in a blog post about Mobile Me, "which means it's going to get fixed." And Cue has a track record at Apple--he's spent the last several years heading up the iTunes team at a time that the online store has become a dominant force in digital music.

3. Scott Forstall, senior vice president of iPhone software

A few days before this year's Worldwide Developers Conference keynote--the venue where Apple would unveil the iPhone 3G as well more details about the iPhone 2.0 software update--the company had another announcement to make. It promoted Scott Forstall to the newly created position of senior vice president of iPhone software. The timing was not coincidental: The iPhone has grown into a critical part of Apple's business, and Forstall has emerged as one of the key figures in the product line's development. When it's time to discuss the intricacies of iPhone software at an Apple event like this year's WWDC keynote or the March unveiling of the iPhone SDK, Steve Jobs turns the stage over to Forstall. Of course, Forstall has earned that trust--he's an 11-year veteran of Apple and one of the original architects of Mac OS X and the Aqua interface. His last job before coming to Apple? Working at NeXT, under the watchful (and apparently approving) eye of his current boss, Steve Jobs.

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