Apple’s next CEO era begins as Tim Cook steps down after a $4 trillion run

Apple is preparing for a leadership change as Tim Cook steps down as chief executive after fifteen years, with hardware chief John Ternus set to take over this September. The transition has brought fresh attention to Cook’s tenure, which Deepwater Asset Management’s Gene Munster has described by saying Cook ran Apple like the ‘president of a country, not a company’.

Cook inherited the CEO role from Steve Jobs in 2011, when Apple was valued at roughly $350 billion. Under his leadership, that value has climbed past $4 trillion, a scale of growth that has naturally drawn comparisons between Cook and Jobs, even though the two led in almost entirely different ways.

Jobs operated on instinct, betting on gut feeling and refusing to compromise on his own taste, an approach that delivered the first iPhone, iPod and iMac but demanded a willingness to be wrong sometimes. Cook, by contrast, built his reputation in operations long before becoming CEO, figuring out how to manufacture and ship Apple’s products at enormous scale, and that background shaped a calmer, listen-first leadership style.

Shortly before Jobs passed away, he gave Cook one piece of advice: never ask what I would do, just do the right thing. The instruction reflected Jobs’s wish that his successor lead on his own judgment rather than trying to replicate a style that was never Cook’s own.

During his fifteen years in charge, Cook pushed Apple into new product categories such as wearables and services while steering the company through global supply chain disruptions, trade tensions and a pandemic. As Ternus takes over this September, Apple’s story under Cook stands as an example of how patient, steady management can carry a company forward long after its founding vision has been set.

Wikimedia Commons/by European Commission (photographer Lukasz Kobus)