The tech executive made the remarks to French outlet Konbini while in the country for a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, who has called for tech companies to pay higher taxes in Europe.

Cook said that if he were a 10 year old French student, he would think it would be more important for me to learn coding than English.

“I'm not telling people not to learn English in some form — but I think you understand what I am saying is that this is a language that you can [use to] express yourself to seven billion people in the world”, Cook said.

"I think that coding should be required in every public school in the world."

But it could be in your interest too: studying coding could increase your chances of pulling in a big salary, as more than a third of the highest paying jobs in the US right now require some familiarity with computer programming, according to a recent report from job search platform Glassdoor.

But, Cook said, the benefits go beyond that.

"It's the language that everyone needs, and not just for the computer scientists. It's for all of us", Cook said. "Creativity is the goal. Coding is just to allow that. Creativity is in the front seat; technology is in the backseat. It is sort of the blend with both of these that you can do such powerful things now."

Of course Cook’s own personal success largely depended on Steve Jobs who could not code and apparently spoke passable Armenian. Cook might also explain why Apple keyboards don't have easy access to the hash symbol - a symbol that's very important to coders.