Sorry if I wasn’t clear. My claim was not “Every organisation has a COO); it was “If an organisation has a COO, the department they manage is typically front-office rather than back-office and often the largest department”.
For Apple, they do indeed manage front-office operations: “Jeff Williams is Apple’s chief operating officer reporting to CEO Tim Cook. He oversees Apple’s entire worldwide operations, as well as customer service and support. He leads Apple’s renowned design team and the software and hardware engineering for Apple Watch. Jeff also drives the company’s health initiatives, pioneering new technologies and advancing medical research to empower people to better understand and manage their health and fitness.”
For Amazon, I couldn’t find a COO of the entire company though it looks like they exist for the business units.
Two quick points:
We should all try to maximise our impact and there’s a good argument for specialisation.
However, I’m concerned by a few things: