Tim Cook’s tenure as Apple CEO is defined by 5 achievements

Few CEOs have ever arrived at the job with as tough a follow-up act as Tim Cook did in 2011, replacing the late Steve Jobs in his waning days. Few still rise to the occasion – and will be able to leave such an amazing legacy to the next person.

Apple’s head honcho, 65, announced Monday that he will step down in September. Cook will take over as Executive Chairman, while John Ternus takes over as CEO.

And of all the great technological, financial, and operational achievements of the past 14 years — which we’ve listed below — some business experts believe this one may be the greatest.

1. Apple’s second successful streak

“Cook’s legacy will extend far beyond any products or shareholder value he created,” Laurie Barkman, a professor of commerce at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, told Mashable. “Two successful transitions at the top level do not happen by accident. They reflect a process embedded in the company’s operating model.”

Given how often ego-driven CEOs screw up their succession, paralyzing their top team in the process – heck, just watch Succession to feel how bad it can be – this is not a difficult task. That kind of operational chaos is one of the reasons why an S&P 500 company only lasted 18 years.

But Cook, a former Chief Operating Officer, has always been known to sweat logistics details. And that’s why Apple recently celebrated its 50th birthday, looking more secure than ever.

Sadly, during Apple’s lean years before the iPhone, Cook saved the company by keeping inventory as low as possible. Controversially, he kept his China-dependent giant growing during a year of high prices by any means necessary, including meeting with a president who does not reflect Cook’s California values.

Now, by handing over the reins in a calm and clear manner, at the time of his selection – nearly two years earlier than some analysts expected – Cook shows the well-oiled machine that Apple has become.

In short, taking Apple “from a one-time founder to an institutional succession,” Berkman said, should be considered “Tim Cook’s greatest achievement.”

2. From Jobs’ millions to Cook’s billions

The mercurial Jobs may have founded Apple, and may have championed Apple’s last money-making product, the iPhone, during his tenure from 1997-2011. But Jobs’ ego-driven departure from the company in 1985 meant that years were spent in the wilderness, and even when he returned, he had to spend a decade dragging Apple from the brink of irrelevance and extinction.

It worked, of course; Jobs resigned when Apple shares were worth $350 billion, or $349 billion more than when Jobs took the company public. But consider what Cook did: his firm hand on the tiller took the company from $350 billion to more than $3.9 billion. a trillion to shareholder value.

Under Cook’s tenure, Apple became the first company in the world to pass $1 billion and then the $2 trillion mark. Only one technology company can claim to have created a larger shareholder value in the past 15 years, and that’s NVIDIA — the main beneficiary of the AI ​​craze.

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And how did Cook do this? In large part, it ensured that the iPhone didn’t go the way of the original Macintosh. The Mac was beautiful, affordable, and quickly eclipsed by the boxy beige PCs running Macintosh-like Windows, which nearly killed Apple in the 1990s.

The smartphone wars seem to be going the same way, with cheap Android phones, especially models made by Samsung, in the Windows seat. But thanks to Cook’s diligence, Apple recently surpassed Samsung as the world’s most popular smartphone manufacturer.

3. Apple is doing something new

Tim Cook, it’s fair to say, is a pretty cautious guy. He prefers repetition to innovation. The iPhone 5, the last version of the device built under Jobs, was not many worlds away from the iPhone 17 unveiled by Cook last year. The most memorable upgrades in between — the iPhone 7’s lack of a headphone jack, the on-screen notch on the iPhone X, last year’s Liquid Glass — felt like they were pinching the edges.

The same goes for the iPad, introduced in 2010; the MacBook, introduced in 2006; and the Apple TV device, introduced in 2005. Design tweaks, cameras, color choices, and under-the-hood upgrades aside, these devices are pretty much the same as they were when Steve Jobs last walked into an Apple Store in 2011.

But there are a few categories of major Apple products that Jobs won’t see — and we’re not just talking about the Apple Vision Pro. (Jobs can at least see the virtual reality platform that Cook’s company has built around this augmented reality headset, and would probably agree with Cook’s move to move to smart glasses very quickly.)

The biggest product launched during Cook’s tenure is the Apple Watch. First conceived by inventor Jony Ive after Jobs’ death and unveiled in 2014, the Apple Watch quickly became the world’s most popular watch. More than 100 million people are currently using one, even if Apple Watch updates are the most exciting part of Apple’s modern event.

Then there’s the AirPods family of Bluetooth headphones — the original (2016), the Pro (2019), and the over-ear Max (2020). All were well received, and their success had much to do with Cook’s purchase of Dr.

4. Apple became a streaming giant

Never mind the Apple TV device, which may have found its way to a 4K version by now, regardless of who the CEO is. Cook’s biggest legacy is another Apple TV, known as the streaming service formerly known as Apple TV+. Launched in 2019, its secret sauce was Apple Studios, which took care of the original program.

By focusing on quality and courting the biggest names in Hollywood, Apple Studios has amassed an impressive string of wins in a short period of time. CODA (2021) became the first Oscar winner for best picture from any streaming service; Netflix has been chasing that prize for ten years. Flower Moon Assassins (2023) made Martin Scorsese’s passion project a hit in theaters, too F1 (2025) became the highest-grossing sports film of all time.

Apple TV shows, on the other hand, have done the seemingly impossible in the age of almost endless streaming. They broke through and became part of the cultural conversation in a way we haven’t seen since Game of Thrones. Just as that show defined TV in the 2010s, the 2020s are actually dominated by Apple hits like the Emmy darling. Ted Lasso (2020-)Severance (2022-), and Vince Gilligan Pluribus (2025-), the latter quickly becoming its most-watched show.

And as if that wasn’t enough, Apple went to town with sports programming (MLB, MLS, Formula One), children’s shows and movies (Sesame Street, Charlie Brown), and one name: Oprah. If any streaming service is starting to resemble old-school network TV with a new flavor, it’s Apple TV. And by offering a free year to sign up for Apple products – while rejecting annoying Amazon-style ads – Cook has ensured that millions of us get stuck in its exit.

5. Avoiding the AI ​​trap

Conventional wisdom holds that Cook’s biggest weakness during his 15 years was his approach to AI. When ChatGPT won hearts and minds in 2023, Cook didn’t even want to use the acronym AI in the pre-recorded keynotes he pioneered. Instead, he said Apple’s software has already been using “machine learning” for years. (Fact check: true.)

Cook’s late compromise came in the form of Apple Intelligence, powered by an on-device version of ChatGPT – but Apple’s 2011-era voice assistant, Siri, stood out like a sore thumb (pending 2026’s major upgrade). Even now, Cook seems to be betting that the quiet majority of consumers are turned off by AI and want its features to be limited, with a focus on privacy, accuracy, and mental health protection.

Cook has yet to be proven right. Because here’s the thing about the conventional wisdom of the tech world: it’s almost always wrong when applied to Apple.

Conventional wisdom says that the company should have sold itself to Microsoft in 1997, leaving (we now know) $3 trillion on the table. Conventional wisdom said that the original iMac should have had a disk drive and no USB ports; make USB the global standard. Conventional wisdom says that consumers will never buy an MP3 player with just 5GB of storage; insert the iPod.

If the Cook-Ternus version of AI meets consumers where they are, rather than surprising the tech media and investors first with outlandish claims, no one will care that Apple took a few years to get there. If Apple Silicon (especially the AI-friendly M5 chip) is finally more important than NVIDIA’s professional GPU – which it will be, if the expansion of the data center continues to cool – then the company created by Cook will easily snatch the crown “most important in the world” from its rival.

And Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO emeritus, will look like a very smart cookie indeed.