Let Tim Cook
Two weeks ago, Tim Cook turned 65. Technically, he has two years to go until "retirement age" for his cohort of workers in the US, but I'm not sure how much Cook needs to ensure his full social security payouts at this point. Undoubtedly far more important for his would-be exit from Apple is timing.
To that end, here is some reporting from Tim Bradshaw, Stephen Morris and Michael Acton, and Daniel Thomas for the FT:
Apple is stepping up its succession planning efforts, as it prepares for Tim Cook to step down as chief executive as soon as next year.
Several people familiar with discussions inside the tech group told the Financial Times that its board and senior executives have recently intensified preparations for Cook to hand over the reins at the $4tn company after more than 14 years.
The fact that there are four reporters bylined on this 330-word post suggests that this is more than just idle speculation based on some loose chatter and more that this is a potential trial balloon on the idea that at least some people "in the know" are floating out there...
That doesn't mean it will happen, of course. Ultimately, the decision is Cook's. While there had been some speculation over the past year that perhaps he would get nudged out the door, that talk quieted quickly when Apple's stock came roaring back to life on the back of some better-than-expected earnings (not to mention some inkling that perhaps Apple isn't in such a bad position to have largely missed the AI boat to date – certainly from a cost perspective!). As the story notes, Cook took Apple from a $350B company at the time he took over for Steve Jobs to a $4T company – a full order of magnitude leap from an already insane base.
Perhaps the only chief executive with a better run is Cook's counterpart Satya Nadella, who not only took Microsoft from around a $280B market cap to also hitting that $4T mark (well before Apple, though they've since slid back a bit), but also had to take over a company in need of an actual change in direction after a lost decade under Steve Ballmer. Cook, of course, just needed to execute on the vision Jobs laid out – and he was the person best suited for that task perhaps in the entire world.
"Just" obviously undersells Cook. He's actually been CEO of Apple longer than Steve Jobs ever was (people forget that Jobs was not the CEO during the early years of Apple through when he was infamously ousted – his actual CEO tenure, including his "iCEO" time, started in 1997 and ended when he handed the reins to Cook in 2011). And much of the past several years have seen Cook execute upon strategies that went far beyond what Jobs may have envisioned, in particular with Services. Which is now gunning for the iPhone business itself in terms of size and importance to Apple.
My point is that no one (with any actual power or sway) is telling Cook to leave. I don't care how embarrassing Apple's AI miss has been. But this is also perhaps a unique moment in time for him to leave, if he wanted to.
Beyond the aforementioned stock price being right back at all-time highs, with a market cap second only to NVIDIA now, Cook seems on the cusp of delivering a "blockbuster" holiday quarter, which will likely be reflected when Apple reports their next quarterly earnings in late January. Apple previewed as much in their last earnings report, which is why the stock is back to where it is after under-performing the rest of Big Tech for the past couple of years (yes, in part thanks to the AI issues but also the tariff/China issues). When thinking about legacy, as anyone in Cook's position after his long tenure now must, certainly there's a desire to go out "on top". And there may be no better time than after that next earnings release.
The company is unlikely to name a new CEO before its next earnings report in late January, which covers the critical holiday period.
An announcement early in the year would give its new leadership team time to settle in ahead of its big annual keynote events, its developer conference in June and its iPhone launch in September, the people said.
Again, the FT reports that "although preparations have intensified, the timing of any announcement could change". And this could just be a matter of teeing it up for Cook if he decides he wants to make the move after thinking about it, say, over the holidays. And the key part of that will obviously be having the succession plan in place. Which it sure seems to be:
John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice-president of hardware engineering, is widely seen as Cook’s most likely successor, although no final decisions have been made, these people said.
This, of course, backs up the reporting Mark Gurman put out there for Bloomberg last year about Ternus likely being "the chosen one". This was somewhat of a surprise at the time because Jeff Williams held the all-important COO title that Cook held before his elevation. But Williams is only slightly younger than Cook and sure enough, earlier this year, Williams announced his own retirement – something which just formally took place last week. That sure seemed to set the stage for the 15-years-younger-than-Cook Ternus...
And Ternus also seems well placed given the fact that while he's younger than most of Apple's other senior leaders, his tenure at the company is still impressive: he'll mark 24 years at the company next May – nearly half his life has been spent at Apple. And that's something which clearly matters to Apple. And the fact that he's been overseeing hardware for many years now also makes him seem particularly well-suited to take over now. Again, with the AI work in flux, it feels like Apple's answer has been to double-down on their strengths, the biggest of which is something else no other company can seemingly match: hardware. Ternus feels like the right guy for the right time in Apple's history.
At the same time, it's also a company clearly in need of some changes as has been showcased so overtly in public by the AI situation. The cultural changes seemingly needed to be able to execute in the Age of AI are the main reason I might argue for Apple to do some major M&A – i.e. it would be less about the tech than the talent and the shift in mindset. But perhaps a "simple" change at the top of Apple will be enough to change things. That plus the fact that many of those other top lieutenants will undoubtedly be retiring soon alongside Cook and Williams.
Might one of Ternus' first moves be to significantly change the App Store rules? Wishful thinking? Probably. But it could be an Microsoft Office-for-iPad-like moment, which Nadella quickly executed to signal change, if nothing else?
Cook has voiced his preference for an internal candidate to be chosen as his replacement, saying the company has “very detailed succession plans”.
“I love it there and I can’t envision my life without being there so I’ll be there a while,” he told singer Dua Lipa on her podcast in November 2023.
Aside from going to Dua Lipa for my Apple news, I also often turn to John Gruber, who notes that while Cook may retire from the CEO role, that doesn't mean he has to fully leave the company (a notion I've put out there before as well)1:
I would also bet that Cook moves into the role of executive chairman, and will still play a significant, if not leading, role for the company when it comes to domestic and international politics. Especially with regard to Trump.
I would just note that the only (loose) retirement policy Apple has in place is for board directors, who typically step down by the time they're 75. That would give Cook another solid decade of being involved, if he chooses. And the company would probably be wise to choose that for at least the next several years for the Trump and China angles, if nothing else, as Gruber notes. Wouldn't it be nice to usher in Ternus and not have him have to worry about delivering golden trinkets to Trump on day one? Ideally, he wouldn't have to deal with any of that nonsense, Cook could still do it. That feels like a very Cook maneuver too – being willing to take that bullet for Apple, as it were.
So yeah, it's pretty clear that Cook is going to retire soon and it's just a question of when. And while he might have liked to wait to get one more product – in particular, the Smart Glasses, which other reports had him very focused on – out the door, he also has to be considering the macro picture. Not only do things look nice and stable for Apple now, but there are potentially storm clouds on the horizon with AI bubbles and what not. If the stock market were to tank – for any reason, independent of Apple – Cook might have a harder time leaving.
I mean, just look at what happened to Disney when Bob Iger left, handing over the reins to Bob Chapek just as COVID was hitting...2 Things got so bad that Iger had to come back! And now he's trying to get it right this time, leaving in early 2026...
One more thing: for what it's worth, the aforementioned Gurman noted that "I don’t get the sense anything is imminent" around Cook retiring. But for as good as Gurman's sources are within Apple, this one is very likely a need-to-know situation. And anyone with such info might be willing to let it be known in a targeted way so there's not a market shock when it happens...
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
M.G. Siegler
1 I would also note that another company where the CEO stepped into the executive chair role is Nike, where Cook is on the board. Mark Parker executed that move before John Donahoe – someone Cook helped directly recruit – stepped in (though that didn't turn out so well)... ↩
2 Iger also stepped off the board of Apple a year before leaving his Disney post the first time... ↩