In fact, according to anonymous employee posts on the employer reviews website Glassdoor, Cook has the highest approval rating of any CEO in tech -- indeed, any CEO in the U.S. -- a whopping 97%.
That's a small but significant step above Jobs, who garnered 95% approval during his final year in the CEO role. (Cook's year includes the months he was officially filling in for Jobs while the founder was on medical leave.)
But for that extra 2%, Cook would not be the sole winner of Glassdoor's list of tech CEOs. He'd be level-pegging with Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs, who has had a stunning year as far as his employees are concerned, rising from 87% approval to 95%.
Meanwhile, Google CEO Larry Page isn't faring so well -- he's seen a 2% decline in employee satisfaction compared to his predecessor, Eric Schmidt. Given that Page has been on a tear killing projects in order to focus on a few core products, it's perhaps surprising that his number is still as high as 94%.
As for Cook, there are any number of reasons why his popularity is so high. Apple shares are soaring past $600, a 50% premium since Jobs' departure. He's set up a matching program for charitable donations, something Jobs famously refused to do. And he's dealt expertly with threats to the Apple image -- most recently making an impromptu visit to the Foxconn factories in China.
"The products speak for themselves and the company," writes one anonymous Apple engineer on Glassdoor. "We have the best management team anywhere," says another Cupertino reviewer.
Perhaps the real question should be: What's the deal with the 3% of Apple employees who don't like Tim Cook?