AUSTIN, Tex. — “The reality is that government, for a long period of time, has for whatever set of reasons become less functional and isn’t working at the speed that it once was. And so it does fall, I think, not just on business but on all other areas of society to step up.”

That was Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, across the table from me over breakfast here in downtown Austin late last week at the end of a mini-tour across the country during which he focused on topics usually reserved for politicians: manufacturing, jobs and education.

He had just spent the prior day in Ohio, where he toured CTS, a technology company that produces the equipment that Apple uses to test water resistance and dust protection for the iPhone and the Apple Watch. He then flew to Des Moines, where he announced plans to make a $1.3 billion investment in a 400,000-square-foot data center in nearby Waukee to help store and move giant amounts of information for its services like iCloud and FaceTime. And he arrived here to announce that Austin Community College will begin offering its 74,000 students a curriculum that Apple developed to teach them how to write code to create apps for iPhones. Austin is one of 30 community colleges that will offer the curriculum.

As Mr. Cook’s breakfast arrived — two scrambled egg whites, crispy bacon (they didn’t have his preferred turkey bacon), sugar-free cereal with unsweetened almond milk — he described his week, punctuated by a visit the night before to the L.B.J. Presidential Library, the museum of President Lyndon B. Johnson.