Timothy D. Cook,Apple's chief executive, likes to tell people that his predecessor, Steven P. Jobs, urged him to be himself when he took over the company.
Mr. Cook is taking that advice. On Thursday, he said he was gay — the most striking example of how he is in many ways making Apple a more open, less secretive company.
"Let me be clear: I'm proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me," Mr. Cook wrote in the essay, published by Bloomberg Businessweek.
Mr. Cook's decision is unlikely to have any major impact on Apple's global business, said business analysts and professors. But they added that because it was a bold move, it was full of unknowns. No business executive of Mr. Cook's stature has ever done something like this before. And while laws legalizing same-sex marriage are sweeping places like the United States, Latin America and Europe, gay rights advocates are still struggling to secure basic protections in Asia, where Apple generated 27 percent of its revenue in the fourth quarter.
Countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore have laws that punish homosexuality. In China, the site of many of the factories that produce Apple gadgets, there are no legal protections for gays and lesbians, and the government occasionally cracks down on rights advocates.
On Chinese social media, some homophobic jokes made the rounds, and Mr. Cook's sexuality ranked as the top issue on China's Twitter-like microblog Weibo. Users alternately supported Mr. Cook or hit out at homosexuality. The chief executive of the antivirus and search engine company Qihoo 360, Zhou Hongyi, joked by questioning whether Chinese tech leaders would imitate Mr. Cook and come out of the closet, just as so many copy Mr. Jobs's style of presentation.
Still, it seemed unlikely that consumer interest in Apple products or its business partnerships in Asia would be damaged.
"They're not going to throw him out, or shut down Apple companies, because it will be bad for their business and bad for their economy," said Grace Poore, director of Asia and Pacific Island programs at theInternational Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission.
At home, Mr. Cook's decision to be public about his sexual orientation typified how Apple has changed under his three years of management. The culture of secrecy Mr. Jobs fostered, with considerable success, also extended to his personal life, about which he was notoriously guarded. For years, he resisted pressure to disclose details of his health, even as he became visibly ill.
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