- Tim Cook steps down as CEO after 15 years at the helm of Apple, with an emotional letter and a record-breaking tally.
- John Ternus, a hardware engineer and company veteran, takes over as the new CEO with the challenge of artificial intelligence and the foldable iPhone.
- The Cook era leaves Apple as the most valuable company in the world, with a market capitalization exceeding $4,5 trillion.
- The transition includes changes in the top management and a first major event on September 9, where new developments are expected.
Fifteen years leading the world's most valuable company leaves its mark, but we rarely see it on Tim Cook. From day one, he has been a man who prefers that products and results speak for themselves. Someone who has worn discretion like a second skin. That's why, when he steps down as CEO next Tuesday to hand the reins to John Ternus, he will do so as he has done almost everything at Apple: efficiently and without making too much noise. Letting his actions speak louder than he does.
But before he left, there was a party. And at that party, among friends and colleagues of two decades, Tim Cook did something he almost never does: talk about himself. He mentioned his partner by name, in front of two hundred people. Among them was Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs' wife and a friend of Tim Cook.
Tim Cook's farewell
On Sunday, August 23, Apple hosted a farewell party for Tim Cook at Apple Park. Part of the event took place at Caffè Macs, the café inside the building. For the occasion, the building's central courtyard was transformed into a concert venue: the band OneRepublic performed live, and a photo circulating online shows Tim Cook holding a guitar, standing next to the band. Around two hundred people attended the event, almost all of them Apple employees, according to The Information. It was, in essence, a celebration for those who had worked closely with Tim Cook over the past fifteen years.
Among those who spoke to pay tribute to Tim Cook was Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs' widow. Jeff Williams, Apple's chief operating officer until his retirement last year and one of Cook's most important right-hand men throughout his tenure as CEO, also spoke. They were joined by Eddy Cue, head of Apple Services, and John Ternus, who currently leads the company's hardware engineering and will soon take over Cook's office. One bidding farewell to his boss, the other about to inherit his position. The end of one chapter and the beginning of another, celebrated on the same Sunday and under the same roof.
Tim Cook also spoke. And in his remarks, he did something that breaks with two decades of discretion: he mentioned his partner by his first name, Mike, in front of all the attendees. According to the same source consulted by The Information, it was a brief acknowledgment, but one that carries more weight because of how infrequent it is coming from Tim Cook. Since publicly announcing he was gay in 2014, Tim Cook has barely touched on the subject. He has preferred to keep his personal life completely private. His decision to mention Mike during his farewell speech makes that moment one of the most human gestures we have seen from him in his fifteen years at the helm of Apple.
Cook's legacy in numbers
The accounting for those fifteen years is hard to dispute. Apple was worth around $348.000 billion when Cook took the helm, and today it's valued at around $4,5 trillion. Annual revenue reached $416.000 billion in fiscal year 2025, and the last quarter Cook presented as CEO closed with a record net profit of $29.789 billion, 27% higher than a year earlier. The stock, which fell 1,8% on Monday, has risen nearly 18% since the change was announced on April 20.
Cook was never a product visionary, but he didn't pretend to be one either. His contribution was making the iPhone the center of an ecosystem that, thanks to services and accessories like the Apple Watch and AirPods, generates recurring revenue with margins no hardware manufacturer had ever seen before. He also spearheaded the move to proprietary chips in his products, the riskiest but best-executed technical decision of his tenure. Vision Pro is the only new product category he personally championed that hasn't quite taken off. The same goes for the AI revolution, which many experts believe Apple is late to the party in.
The other unexpected cost is the Chinese supply chain that has made the economic miracle possible and continues to function like clockwork, but is now the company's most fragile asset due to the tense international geopolitical situation.
John Ternus, the new captain
John Ternus assumed the role of Apple CEO on September 1st, after 25 years with the company and definitively replacing Tim Cook at the helm of the iPhone maker. The former Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering begins a new chapter for the tech giant with a clear professional philosophy: "It's hard to put so much of yourself into something. It's stressful. It demands sacrifice. But it's worth it because our time is finite." His arrival marks the beginning of a period defined by the need to maintain the strength of the business while Apple seeks to regain ground in artificial intelligence.
The appointment once again places an executive from within the company at the helm of Apple. John Ternus, 51, joined the company in 2001 after working as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems, and in 2013 he was appointed vice president of Hardware Engineering. Eight years later, he joined the executive team. During his tenure, he has participated in the development of products such as the Mac, iPad, iPhone, and AirPods, as well as playing a key role in the transition to Apple Silicon, one of the company's most significant technological shifts in recent years.
A story from the development of the Cinema Display offers insight into the product culture that Ternus now aims to bring to Apple's leadership. When he was still one of the company's junior engineers, he spent a night at a supplier's facility scrutinizing the tiny slots of steel screws on the back of the monitor with a magnifying glass. The design called for 25, but the supplier had manufactured 35. The difference would hardly have been noticeable to a buyer, but for Ternus, that detail represented something more important than its visible impact. Years later, the executive explained what he learned from that experience: "If you're going to dedicate that much time to something, you should give it your all."
The challenges ahead
Ternus's main technological challenge will be closing the gap in the AI race. While competitors like Google have made great strides in incorporating the most advanced chatbots into their devices, Apple has adopted a more cautious approach. The lack of significant announcements regarding its Apple Intelligence platform and delays in new Siri personalization features have led the company to rely on third-party AI integrations.
Ternus will also have to demonstrate his diplomatic skills in the political arena, as Cook distinguished himself by his ability to navigate trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, successfully circumventing tariff policies during Donald Trump's presidency. Now, with renewed pressure from the White House to relocate production to the United States, the new CEO will have to manage the company's reliance on the Chinese supply chain and accelerate diversification into countries like India.
The first public test will be on September 9th in Cupertino. This is the date on which Apple is expected to unveil its first foldable iPhone , new Apple Watches, and the formal debut of the new Siri, built on the advanced artificial intelligence systems the company previewed last July, but which is arriving two years behind schedule.
Cook's departure will also alter the roles of many long-standing Apple executives. Phil Schiller, for example, will no longer lead the App Store or company events. He joined Apple in 1987, led marketing from 1997, and presented many of the products that defined the past decade. The App Store will now return to Eddy Cue's services division, from which it was moved in December 2015 precisely so that Schiller could manage it. Day-to-day operations will be handled by Carson Oliver, who will oversee app distribution, alternative stores, and Apple Arcade. Events will become the responsibility of Nola Weinstein, Schiller's former deputy, who will report to Kristin Huguet Quayle, vice president of communications. Schiller will retain the title of Apple Fellow and will work on "various initiatives" in an advisory capacity, Apple's standard approach to phased retirement.
In the last two years, Apple has also seen the departure or announcement of departures from its leadership, including Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri, General Counsel Kate Adams, Head of Environment Lisa Jackson, Head of Artificial Intelligence John Giannandrea, and Vice President of Design Alan Dye, now head of design at Meta. Reorganizing Apple's executive leadership will therefore be John Ternus's first task.
With the party over and the letter sent, the question now is how John Ternus's influence will be felt once he takes his seat in the office. Tim Cook will remain close, but from now on, the company's course will no longer be solely his. The transition is underway, and the tech world is watching closely to see if the new captain will manage to keep the ship on smooth waters or if, on the contrary, he will have to navigate storms that even his predecessor couldn't have foreseen.