Apple CEO Tim Cook stepping down, to be succeeded by John Ternus

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Apple CEO Tim Cook stepping down, to be succeeded by John Ternus.

companies :: 1day ago :: source - yahoo finance

By Daniel Howley

Apple announced on Monday that CEO Tim Cook is stepping down from the role on Sept. 1, a position he’s held since 2011.

Cook will be succeeded by senior vice president of hardware engineering John Ternus but will stay on as chairman.

Apple stock declined less than 1% in after-market trading following the news.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company,” Cook said in a statement.

“John Ternus has the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and with honor. He is a visionary whose contributions to Apple over 25 years are already too numerous to count, and he is without question the right person to lead Apple into the future. I could not be more confident in his abilities and his character, and I look forward to working closely with him on this transition and in my new role as executive chairman.”

Replacing Cook, who has been at Apple since Steve Jobs hired him in 1998, will be no small task.

Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, joined Apple in 2001 and has held his current position since 2013. The 50-year-old executive graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in mechanical engineering and worked at Virtual Research Systems before moving to Apple.

John Ternus, Vice President, Mac and iPad Hardware Engineering speaks during Apple's annual world wide developer conference (WWDC) in San Jose, California, U.S. June 5, 2017. REUTERS/Stephen Lam

Ternus has already made several high-profile public appearances at Apple’s annual product events, including the company’s latest iPhone launch and its recent MacBook Neo unveiling.

He’s also the kind of perfectionist Apple is known for. During his keynote address at The University of Pennsylvania’s Engineering Commencement in 2024, Ternus recounted arguing with a supplier over the number of grooves in the heads of screws that would sit in the back of his first Apple product, the Apple Cinema Display. The screws the supplier offered had 35 grooves, but Ternus demanded they stick to the 25 grooves Apple wanted.

“I distinctly remember stepping back for a minute and thinking to myself, ‘What the hell am I doing? Is this normal?’ And I thought about it, and I realized it might not be normal, but it's right,” he said.

“It's right because I'd already spent months working on that product, and if you're going to spend that much time on something, you should put in your very best effort. Maybe a customer notices, maybe they don't. But either way, whenever I saw one of those displays on someone's desk, it mattered to me to know that my teammates and I had considered everything about it.”

Read more about Apple's CEO transition:

Ternus has also worked across numerous businesses within Apple. He’s worked on the iPhone, iPad, and AirPods and is helping to shepherd Apple's continued transition toward using more of its own silicon chips throughout its products.

During his tenure, Cook has overseen the launch of a number of new product lines, including the Apple Watch and AirPods, pushed Apple to produce its own chips for its Mac laptops and desktops, and, most importantly, made the company’s Services segment a $109 billion-a-year business.

He’s also driven its market capitalization to a staggering $4 trillion.

But Cook has also faced some criticisms, including a lack of a true successor to the iPhone and the company’s current AI woes. And as of Sept. 1, Ternus will have to contend with the same issues.

Email Daniel Howley at dhowley@yahoofinance.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley.