According to a forthcoming book, Inside Apple by Fortune editor Adam Lashinsky, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs did not allow any of his executive team other than Tim Cook to accept invitations to sit on the board of other companies. The instigator of Apple's famed culture of secrecy, Jobs was often worried that other companies would "poach" his carefully-cultivated team of "A-players" or profit from their insight, and thus, with one exception, would not allow them to serve on other companies' boards of directors, even when the company in question was not a competitor.
