Thanks, Tim

Today is Tim Cook’s last day as CEO of Apple.

No company has been more important to me in my life. In the early 90s I wanted to work in advertising, and the Mac was the machine that ran DTP. My first one was a Performa 6100. I have never used anything else since.

I remember Steve Jobs leaving the first time. Then came Sculley, Spindler, Amelio. In 1997 Steve came back and led the company until his death. A year later I saw the iMac in a store in San Francisco. Not an Apple Store, those didn’t exist yet. Standing in front of it I knew Apple was saved and could only go up from here. That also led me to buy Apple stock. I sold it two years later because I needed money for furniture when my wife and I moved in together. Today I could probably buy the whole apartment with it 😊

Fifteen years ago Tim took over and grew annual revenue from 108 billion to 416 billion dollars. From tomorrow on, John Ternus runs Apple.

So who is he?

A mechanical engineer from the University of Pennsylvania, class of 1997. He swam for the university team. His senior project was a mechanical feeding arm for quadriplegics, controlled by head movement. Before Apple he built VR headsets at a small company called Virtual Research Systems, which is a funny detail now that Apple sells one.

He joined Apple in 2001 on the product design team and started out on the Cinema Display. VP of hardware engineering in 2013 under Dan Riccio (then head of hardware). His first time on an Apple stage was WWDC 2017 in San Jose, introducing the iMac Pro, back when keynotes were still live. iPhone hardware in 2020, Apple Watch in 2022, the design teams last year. By the time the board named him in April, he was already running the products behind roughly 80% of Apple’s revenue. Twenty-five years at one company, and one job before that.

What is his plan for the next years?

We won’t see major product changes overnight. But the leadership team will look different within months. Jeff Williams (COO until 2025), Luca Maestri (CFO until 2025) and Alan Dye (VP Human Interface Design) are already gone. Phil Schiller (Apple Fellow, App Store) and Kate Adams (General Counsel) are expected to follow. Johny Srouji (now Chief Hardware Officer) has taken over hardware, and Laura Legros (former VP Hardware Engineering) came back from retirement to report directly to Ternus. Building his own bench is exactly what Tim did in 2011. You will see Ternus in the products two or three years from now.

Every die-hard Apple fan is waiting for true innovation. I want that too. I also want the products to keep developing at the level they have reached over the past years.

Looking forward to his first keynote next week. And who knows, maybe Apple brings the in-person keynote back. There are rumours pointing that way. I would love it, including a “one more thing”.

Thanks, Tim.