Last week, the Financial Times reported that Apple CEO Tim Cook may step down next year. This news seemed to have little impact on Apple’s stock price, but it certainly sparked conversations among Apple fans and armchair tech pundits. Some people have long criticized Cook as a bean counter and “ops guy,” believing he was not the right person to helm the 21st century’s leading consumer technology company, especially one previously guided by a product visionary like Steve Jobs.
Many of these same people are now hoping that Apple’s next CEO will be Apple’s current senior vice president of hardware engineering, John Ternus. They see Ternus as a “product guy” like Jobs. Or, probably more accurately, they see Ternus as a “product guy” unlike cook. But I think that this does Cook a disservice. And for the good of the company, I hope whoever ends up taking the reins is as much like Cook as they are like Jobs. Because while Steve Jobs may have been a visionary, Tim Cook pulled off the impossible.
Tim Cook, the product guy
Let me first address the false idea that Cook isn’t a product guy. Just look at the groundbreaking new products—hardware, software, and services—Apple has released under Cook’s leadership since 2011.
In 2014, Apple released Apple Pay, which brought contactless mobile payments to the masses for the first time. A year later, in 2015, the company redefined the smartwatch with the Apple Watch. Also in 2015, Apple officially became a streaming services company, with the launch of Apple Music, giving the world its first competent alternative to Spotify.
