At 12 years old, Tim Cook got his first job and used the earnings to assist with his college expenses.

Delivering newspapers in the early morning hours was the humble beginning of Tim Cook's journey to becoming Apple's CEO.

Cook, now 63, began working at the age of 12 to save money for college. He told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday that he started his college education by throwing papers. Cook became the first member of his family to attend college.

The CEO of Apple grew up in a small, rural town in Alabama, where his father worked at a shipyard and his mother worked at a local pharmacy. Despite not often speaking about his upbringing, it is reported that his childhood was modest, with the family unable to afford a typewriter, according to The Washington Post.

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To begin earning money, Cook, as a pre-teen, secured a job delivering the Mobile Press Register newspaper.

"Cook stated that he was expected to work in his family, and his daily routine involved waking up at around 3 am, picking up a stack of papers, and throwing them. He would then return and take a nap before school."

'A privilege that I needed not to waste'

According to a 2019 biography, Cook worked part-time at a local pharmacy before attending Auburn University. He did not disclose the exact amount of money he saved from his newspaper route or how much of his college tuition it covered.

Auburn's tuition cost $660 per year for in-state students when Cook matriculated, which is equivalent to $2,675 in today's dollars after adjusting for inflation. Currently, the annual tuition is $12,890.

In 1982, Cook graduated and landed a job at IBM, where he spent 12 years and eventually became director of North American Fulfillment. Later, he joined Compaq as a vice president and was captivated by a sales pitch from Steve Jobs, who later became his mentor at Apple, where he joined in 1998.

As a young man, Cook had no inkling that he would one day become CEO of the world's largest company by market value, with Apple currently valued at nearly $3.5 trillion. However, he did have a strong sense even as a kid delivering newspapers that a college education could be an important early step for his career.

"I recognized that attending college was a privilege I couldn't squander," Cook stated. "College was viewed as a gateway in those days, and I hope it still is today."

Warren Buffett and others also started with paper routes

Many successful individuals, including future presidents and industry titans, began their careers with a humble newspaper route.

Warren Buffett, a renowned billionaire investor, earned up to $2,000 by age 15 delivering The Washington Post while his father served as a U.S. congressman in Washington D.C.

In 2015, Buffett shared with journalist Barry Wood that delivering newspapers taught him the importance of hard work. He said, "I learned that if you did a good job, you would advance. My performance in Spring Valley earned me the Westchester routes later on."

Buffett reportedly invested his earnings by buying a share of a 40-acre Nebraska farm and had a number of other childhood money hustles, including selling gum and starting a pinball machine business.

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