Tim Cook’s exit marks Apple’s next chapter
▼ Summary
– Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down in September 2025 and will be replaced by hardware chief John Ternus, marking a shift away from a leadership team handpicked by Steve Jobs.
– Many Jobs-era executives have departed, including Scott Forstall, Bob Mansfield, Dan Riccio, Jeff Williams, and Jony Ive, leaving only a few like Eddy Cue and Phil Schiller still at Apple.
– Ternus, who joined Apple in 2001, bridges the Jobs and Cook eras, having overseen post-Jobs products like AirPods and the iPhone Air.
– Cook’s leadership team is now largely his own creation, with new leaders like Johny Srouji and Sabih Khan moving into top roles.
– The new leadership must decide Apple’s future direction, as Cook transformed the company into a $4 trillion giant during his tenure.
Apple is entering a new era. This September, Tim Cook will step down as CEO, with John Ternus, Apple’s current head of hardware, taking the reins. But this transition signals more than just a change in leadership. It marks the most profound shift yet for a company whose executive team is no longer defined by Steve Jobs.
Since taking over in 2011, Cook has been the last major link to Jobs’ inner circle. That list is now shrinking fast. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, who joined in 1989 and once described Jobs as a “family member,” remains. So does Phil Schiller, the longtime marketing executive who helped launch the Mac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad alongside Jobs. Schiller scaled back his role in 2020 but still oversees the App Store.
Other holdovers include Greg Joswiak and Craig Federighi. Joswiak started at Apple in 1986 and worked under Jobs on the original iPod and iPhone before taking over as head of marketing in 2020. Federighi, Apple’s software chief, previously worked at Jobs’ company NeXT before it was acquired. He left soon after but returned in 2009.
Yet many key Jobs-era figures have already moved on. Scott Forstall, once considered a potential successor, was ousted in 2012 after the troubled Apple Maps launch. Bob Mansfield, a pivotal executive who oversaw the Mac’s transition to Intel chips, finally retired in 2020 after years of being pulled back by Cook. Dan Riccio, who oversaw hardware engineering under Jobs, retired in 2024. Former COO Jeff Williams, who helped realize Jobs’ vision of a glass screen for the original iPhone, left last year. And Jony Ive, Jobs’ “closest” friend and Apple’s legendary designer, departed in 2019.
That doesn’t mean the new leadership has no ties to the Jobs era. John Ternus joined Apple in 2001 and rose to vice president of hardware engineering under Cook in 2013, overseeing products like the AirPods and iPhone Air. Johny Srouji, the newly appointed chief hardware officer, joined in 2008 to work on the A4 chip and later launched Apple’s first in-house Mac chip in 2020. Sabih Khan, who started at Apple in 1995, became chief operating officer last year.
But make no mistake, this is Cook’s team. He kept the Jobs-era executives around for an unusually long time. Some of them remember when Apple was not the $4 trillion giant it is today. That era, however, is clearly ending.
Now, the next generation must carve its own path. Cook and his team transformed Apple into a global powerhouse. As Ternus takes the helm, he faces major decisions about where the company goes from here.
(Source: The Verge)
