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Apple Speeds Planning for Replacing CEO Tim Cook Next Year (daringfireball.net) 40

Posted by EditorDavid from the thinking-different dept.
From the Business Standard: Apple has accelerated its succession plans as the company prepares for Chief Executive Tim Cook to potentially step down as early as next year, Financial Times reported. Apple's board and senior leaders have recently increased their focus on a smooth leadership transition after Cook's more than 14 years at the helm of the $4 trillion tech giant, the news report said.

John Ternus, senior Vice-President of hardware engineering, is seen by many inside Apple as the top contender to become the next CEO. However, no final decision has been made yet. The leadership shift has been in the works for years and is not connected to its present performance, the news report said. Apple expects a strong year-end sales season, especially for the iPhone... Cook, who turned 65 this month, became Apple's CEO in 2011 after the passing of co-founder Steve Jobs. Under his leadership, Apple's market value has grown from around $350 billion in 2011 to $4 trillion today. Apple's stock is near a record high following strong results last month.
Apple "is unlikely to introduce a new CEO before its earnings report in late January, which covers the crucial holiday quarter," the article points out. "An early-year announcement would allow the next leadership team time to settle before Apple's major annual events — the Worldwide Developers Conference in June and the iPhone launch in September..."

Slashdot reader BrianFagioli points out that top-contender Ternus "is deeply technical and has been central to Apple Silicon and the hardware comeback in the Mac line." If Apple elevates him, that would be an unmistakable signal that the board wants a return to stronger, more grounded hardware leadership. The company may finally realize that accessories aren't enough to keep Apple fans excited, and that expensive experiments are not a substitute for devices people can actually use and afford... Financial success can only hide hardware misfires for so long. Apple needs a leader who can reconnect the company with its reputation for creating devices people can't live without, not ones people return or ignore.
Tech blogger John Gruber "absolutely loves" the idea of Cook's successor "being a product person like Ternus, and Ternus is young enough -- the same age Cook was in 2011 when he took the reins from Steve Job -- to hold the job for a long stretch." Ternus took over iPhone hardware engineering in 2020, and was promoted to senior vice president of hardware engineering in January 2021, when Dan Riccio stepped aside. Apple's hardware, across all product lines and including silicon, has been exemplary under Ternus's leadership. And Ternus clearly loves and understands the Mac. I would also bet that Cook moves into the role of executive chairman, and will still play a significant, if not leading, role for the company.
And Gruber makes another observation about that Financial Times article. "That 'several people' spoke to the FT about this says to me that those sources (members of the board?) did so with Cook's blessing, and they want this announcement to be no more than a little surprising."
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Apple Speeds Planning for Replacing CEO Tim Cook Next Year More

Apple Speeds Planning for Replacing CEO Tim Cook Next Year

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  • What did they pay him? (Score:3)

    by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Sunday November 16, 2025 @06:29PM (#65799293)

    Tesla's BoD had to give Elon a potential pay package of $1T for him to consider planning for a successor

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Doesn't Elon's pay depend on Tesla revenue? If for example BYD kicks Tesla's ass, Elon gets lackluster pay.

      • If it's tied to stock performance, is actual revenue incidental due to short squeezes, momentum, expectations, and other irrational factors that make your attempt to force Musk's wealth accumulation into some real terms mainstream economics deal with difficult to believe?

  • Steve Jobs back? Like him or not, the best Apple days, products and innovations were done during his iron fists days. And he drove countless companies down this same path, to the point some are now better than current day Apple is.
    Since he will not return, hope whoever is confirmed do more than just damage control and play catch up.

    • Re:Can we get (Score:5, Interesting)

      by commodore73 ( 967172 ) on Sunday November 16, 2025 @07:56PM (#65799345)
      I can't possibly summarize everything that Jobs ever said, but here's one I read recently. I have no idea whether this is true or not or whether this strategy could work today.

      THE “EMPTY TABLE PRINCIPLE”: How Steve Jobs Used Silence to Outsell Every Competitor

      In 1997, Apple was weeks away from bankruptcy. The stock was crashing. Employees were quitting. The brand was considered dead.

      So the board brought back Steve Jobs and his first act shocked everyone.

      He walked into the product strategy meeting, looked at a giant table filled with dozens of computers, printers, gadgets, accessories, and prototypes and said nothing.

      He just stood there. People waited. Coughed. Shifted in their seats.

      Finally, Jobs calmly said:

      “We’re going to make four products. And we’re going to make them insanely great. Everything else delete it.”

      Engineers panicked. Marketers protested. Entire departments begged him to keep their devices alive.
      Jobs refused. One by one, he cleared the table. Every product gone. Every complication gone. Every distraction gone.

      When he finished, the once-packed table was completely empty. He pointed at it and said: “This is how we win.”

      From that empty table came the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad the most profitable product line in consumer history.

      Apple didn’t grow by adding. It grew by subtracting.

      THE MARKETING LESSON

      Complexity kills sales.

      Clarity creates dominance.

      Jobs understood something most businesses still ignore:

      Customers don’t choose the best product
      they choose the clearest choice.

      That’s why:
      In-N-Out sells more with 3 burgers than menus with 98 items
      Trader Joe’s thrives with fewer SKUs than any major grocery chain
      Netflix exploded when they removed everything except one promise: “Watch anything instantly.”

      When you remove noise, value becomes visible.
      When you reduce options, demand increases.
      When you simplify choices, people act faster.
      THE NERDY TAKEAWAY

      The “Empty Table Principle” teaches this:

      You don’t need more products.
      You need more purpose.

      Growth isn’t about offering everything.
      It’s about focusing on the thing you can make unforgettable.

      Because when your brand becomes clear
      your audience becomes certain.

      And certainty sells more than features ever will.

      Source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts... [linkedin.com]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        That made sense if you saw the Apple product line which had dozens of computers at many different price points all with subtle variations all meant to satisfy some niche.

        Jobs knew Apple could not sustain such a product line. Restaurants in trouble often have sprawling menus for the same reason - some small percentage of the customer base likes one menu item, and now the menu bloats to dozen pages with dozens of dishes on each.

        The call to simplify was required because Apple had no business with dozens of var

      • Sounds like rationalising after the fact.
        Jobs was never technical, but he knew what appealed to non-technical people and he knew that non-technical people have the most money to spend. He was personally rich and, as a sociopath knew how to manipulate Americans, who worship and grovel before anyone richer than them, into thinking his products were worth buying.

        • That's a very cynical way to look at things. Upon second thought, I do think you're correct.

        • Sounds like rationalising after the fact.
          Jobs was never technical, but he knew what appealed to non-technical people and he knew that non-technical people have the most money to spend. He was personally rich and, as a sociopath knew how to manipulate Americans, who worship and grovel before anyone richer than them, into thinking his products were worth buying.

          Jobs was more technical than most people realize.

          While certainly not a full-fledged engineer, he picked up enough digital electronics knowledge from his friendship with Woz and from engineers at Atari to design some simple stuff. I've seen at least one Apple-1 Add-on Board schematic supposedly designed by SJ at auction.

      • That is a good approach, but Walmart success shows that it's not the only approach. It is also possible to make a load of money by selling everything. (See also: Procter and Gamble).

        Steve Jobs chose the right solution for Apple. It's not the right solution for every company, or all the time.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by 605dave ( 722736 )

        The four products on the desk were the iBook, the iMac, the MacBook, and the MacBook Pro. And the iBook was not announced at first. So we only saw three of the four squares when first introduced.

      • Excellent analysis!

    • Steve Jobs back? Like him or not, the best Apple days, products and innovations were done during his iron fists days. And he drove countless companies down this same path, to the point some are now better than current day Apple is.
      Since he will not return, hope whoever is confirmed do more than just damage control and play catch up.

      Although Tim Cook has been a perfectly fine leader commercially (The man is a supply chain god, by all accounts), he's never had Job's innate sense for the market, consumer, and

      • Jony Ive may be a good designer but that doesn't necessarily mean he would make a good leader. The two skills aren't guaranteed to go hand in hand. Steve Jobs personally knew both Ive and Cook and he picked Cook as his successor.

        Cook has done very well as far as I am concerned. A company as large as Apple needs someone to make sure things work smoothly and ensure that good ideas have room to breathe. A designer like Ive might actually stifle ideas as too many people would likely just try to copy him rather

    • Remember, the NSA got Apple's cooperation after Jobs stepped down. -snowden leak

  • Pretty sure they need a young visionary, not an autistic gen X engineer

  • Godspeed, Tim Apple!
            --Donald Trump

  • Succession planning - Board responsibility 101. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CommunityMember ( 6662188 ) on Monday November 17, 2025 @12:14AM (#65799561)

    All companies need some form of senior C-level (and especially CEO) succession planning (bus's happen). Those plans might change (the candidate(s) may end up being poached, or themselves end up being bus victims), but a board who does not have a plan deserves to be ousted as incompetent.

    While the details were not fully disclosed for years, Berkshire Hathaway (considered a highly successful company) had a plan for Warren Buffet's replacement (should it be needed) for a long time before he decided to retire.

  • Cook will leave and start a business making expensive knitted footwear, that are attractive and appeal to the cognoscenti but fail to sell.

    Apple shares will tank and Cook will be asked back.

    He will have them make a new computer with colored transparent bits.

    The gullible will buy them like hot cakes and Apple will be saved.

    Cook will get rectal cancer, treat it with a meat-only diet, and die.

  • The commoner's obsession with succession is like some kind of soap opera.
    Just eat your own dogfood and put an AI in charge FFS.

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