[Wobbles42]

I would agree that most people with that exact background would have learned the hard way to care about privacy.

The single example that ascended to be the CEO of Apple though? That selection process would seem more relevant than any personal background.

My base assumption is that any impressions we have about Tim Cook (or any other executive of a company that size) are a carefully crafted artifact of marketing and PR. He may be a real person behind the scenes, but his (and everyone's) media persona is a fictional character he is portraying.

[petesergeant]

It feels like if you'd expect someone to be something based on their background, _and_ they profess to be that thing, then the onus is on the person disputing it to come up with the evidence contra?

> any impressions we have about Tim Cook ... is a fictional character he is portraying

The relevant ones here are that he's gay, of a certain age, and from the South, and that he heads up a company who appear to invest heavily, over a long period of time, in privacy protections -- these all feel like they'd be easy to falsify if there existed evidence to the contrary.