Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down from the job that he inherited from the late Steve Jobs, ending a nearly 15-year reign that saw the company’s market value soar by more than US$3.6 trillion during an iPhone-fuelled era of prosperity.
Cook, 65, will turn the CEO duties over to
Apple’s head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, on September 1 while remaining involved with the Cupertino, California, company as executive chairman.
That is similar to the transitions made by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Netflix’s Reed Hastings after they ended their highly successful tenures as CEO.
Although he never shook the perception that he lacked Jobs’ vision, Cook leveraged the popularity of the iPhone and other breakthroughs orchestrated by his predecessor to lift Apple to heights that seemed unfathomable when it was on the brink of bankruptcy during the mid-1990s.
Ternus, who joined Apple in 2001, has recently overseen the company’s hardware engineering efforts and has played a key role in reigniting sales of products such as Apple’s Mac computers, which have gained market share in recent years.
Ben Bajarin, CEO of technology consulting firm Creative Strategies, said Ternus is well-liked within Apple “and will bring fresh energy”.