Apple CEO Tim Cook (left) and Steve Jobs (right) at an event in 2007.
Fifteen years ago, Apple’s last leadership transition was more somber. For years, off and on, Tim Cook had been stepping in to take on more of Apple’s day-to-day operations as the ailing then-CEO Steve Jobs went on successive medical leaves before finally stepping down on Aug. 24, 2011. Two months later, Jobs died, and Cook began a new, uncertain era in Apple’s history.
Jobs had been the public face of Apple when he stepped down — the co-founder who was pushed out in the ’80s and triumphantly returned in the ’90s, renewing the company’s reputation with the iMac in 1998 and redefining the mobile industry with the iPhone in 2007.
Jobs’ brash behavior was notorious, but so was his success in shaping Apple into a pugnacious underdog competitor to conventional consumer tech in style and user-friendly software. He earned headlines with his combative quotes to the press as well as his slick presentations and Stevenotes at WWDC and Macworld Expo. His “reality distortion field” led him to push for abrupt and severe changes that would seem impossible if they came from another executive.
In short, Jobs was Apple, and his absence led to a lot of uncertainty about who could fill his shoes. By comparison, Cook was quieter, friendlier and a far less known quantity when he took over.
Cook had already been serving as Apple’s chief operating officer for seven years when he officially became the company’s CEO, but earlier in his career had held similar operational roles at rival computing companies Compaq and IBM. A logistics specialist wasn’t who anyone expected to take over for the personality-driven Jobs, but his already proven ability to improve Apple’s supply chain and improve margins across its entire product lineup was promising for folks at the top looking at the company through spreadsheets.
In retrospect, the appointment was sound. Cook has overseen a decade and a half of wild financial growth, making Apple one of the highest-value companies on the planet and securing its role as an arbiter of consumer technology. While he made far fewer headlines, Cook was a stable presence at Apple. Especially in the early 2010s, pundits criticized Cook for not living up to Jobs’ example as a gadget visionary, but his legacy includes successful forays into new product lines (Apple Watch, AirPods) and services. Now we look to see how Apple will change under incoming CEO John Ternus.
