Tim Cook could step down as Apple CEO 'as soon as next year
78 comments
·November 15, 2025ryandrake
verelo
You forget, the camera gets better every year!
I've had an iphone for 15 years. I mean, it's fine...i just wish there was incentive for durability and sustainability v's replace it every 12-24 months. I guess sustainability concerns at Apple ends at ensuring their stock price is sustainable.
harshalizee
What do you do with your phones that it doesn't last more than 24 months? I've had only two iPhones for almost 11 years. An iphone 6s and currently an iPhone 13 mini there entire time. They're solidly reliable
Gigachad
In the real world I don't know anyone replacing their phone every 24 months. Usually people keep a phone for 3-4 years and then it gets given to kids/someone else for another few years usage. I doubt any significant number of people are chucking their 1 year old iphone in a draw to sit unused after they get the next one.
manquer
> that's what shareholders want
What else could shareholders want? Employees, management, founders, customers, vendors could all have other goals, wants or desire but when you have a large number of shareholders that is what they want always.
Shareholders - a large majority of them are institutional with their own shareholders they are accountable to, always want more money - that is a core principle of capitalism.
Occasionally we can tie other objectives to financial gains to get a behave in a specific way, say a green initiative will improve the brand perception therefore brand value - because now they can charge more/ justify current pricing etc.
It can at times align the other way too for risk minimization - a founder wants a large budget for something - like say Zuckerberg with Metaverse[3], or Musk with $1T pay [2] firing the founder is more expensive[1] so shareholders sign off.
Fundamentally it always boils down to profit/value maximization for the shareholders.
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[1] By no means unique, except for the scale of money spent on a vanity project.
[2] Firing is more expensive - Tesla trades at such crazy multiples those are arguably not viable without Musk. It is probably cheaper to give then $1T pay package or the similar $56b package from 2018 currently being disputed in court.
[3] Almost impossible in Meta's case. The board can fire the CEO in any company, but since Zuckerberg owns > 50% of the voting shares, he as the majority shareholder can also fire the board anytime and replace with a board who will sign off. It is not absolute power though, there are some protections for minority shareholders as Delaware court is showing with 2018 Musk package case.
gyomu
Steve wanted to become chairman of the board and teach at Stanford. Given how much he trusted Tim, I’m not so sure the company would have taken a dramatically different path had he been around longer.
ludwik
But this sounds like an ideal setup, doesn't it? Tim is fantastic at execution, but he does need a shot of big-picture vision every now and then. Tim as CEO with Steve as Chairman, steering the broader direction, feels like it could have been a perfect pairing. The issue with how things actually turned out is that Tim ended up on his own - all execution, no vision.
gyomu
How many people can name the chairman of the board at Apple today off the top of their head (Arthur Levinson)? And how much does Arthur Levinson steer the broader direction of the company? That's just not what the role is about.
Steve was so effective precisely because he was able to get deeply involved in the day to day details in ways no other CEO has (whether on product matters, or personnel matters). That's not what you do as chairman of the board.
welks
If he hadn't tried to self-treat his cancer with acupuncture, fruit juice and herbs, he'd probably be around now to do that. The man was clearly a lucky idiot, and shouldn't be revered, but used as a cautionary tale of unbridled arrogance.
rkomorn
I'd consider myself a Steve Jobs hater (and I think his treatment choices were bad) but the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is in the 10-15% range.
"Probably", he'd not be around today. Even with his money, it'd be improbable.
usui
Maybe watch this lecture by a medical professional https://youtu.be/81xnvgOlHaY before repeating a commonly-believed myth.
steve-atx-7600
A person should be judged by a stupid decision they made? I hope you never did anything that wasn't rational.
tptacek
I couldn't disagree more. Some of the worst Apple computers I've owned date to the Jobs era. All of the best have been from the Cook era. Apple Silicon has been an enormous success.
(My first Apple was a TiBook, for what it's worth.)
lbourdages
Well, the current hardware is solid - great build quality, powerful, insane battery life.
However, software-wise, the peak was 10.6. There hasn't been the same level of quality ever since.
Gigachad
iOS and ipadOS have gotten massively better over the years. The gap between them and macos has been slowly closing. Still a lot to go, but so much has improved.
tptacek
I would not want to be running Snow Leopard. And remember, that's a release they had to do because 10.5 was so rough!
coolestguy
The guy who oversaw the silicon change is the one who's likely going to be the next CEO
steve-atx-7600
What was different in the jobs era were the goals and trajectory toward achieving them. The tibook was just a first step.
tptacek
Seems like a just-so story. They shipped some rough computers over the course of that trajectory.
skywhopper
They’re still not quite as bad as most alternatives but yeah, most of the principles that made them stand out are falling away.
bnchrch
If you check my comments Im a routine critic of Apple. Specifically its mis-management of Siri.
But, in my mind, Tim Cook is also responsible for the only exceptional qualities of Apple. Namely its production of the M series chips and the Vision Pro (yes really).
They better have someone outstanding in mind as a replacement.
Otherwise I could easily see the successor mildly improve Siri/AI functions, while continuing Apples new disastrous design language and drop the ball on the supply chain and vertical integration that makes their hardware products second to none.
827a
Ternus is the leading candidate; VP of Hardware Engineering. He was very likely more directly responsible than Cook for all the things you liked about Cook's Apple.
My fear for Apple right now is how most decisions they make appear to incentivize them toward becoming a perpetual middle-man in all aspects of your interactions with their products. They don't manufacture much of anything anymore; its on-contract. They design the M-Series chips, but don't make them. Their software sucks; they'd rather just take 30% of your interaction with actually-good software. Their AI and search sucks; they just pay Google $30B a year for theirs. Etc and etc.
alberth
Ternus team didn’t create M-series.
Johny Srouji team did instead.
rhubarbtree
Wait, Apple Pay Google for search?
gsharma
No, it’s the other way around. Comment above is confused about the relationship.
nadermx
What incentive do they have otherwise?
Mistletoe
Their Siri sucks so they just borrowed Google Gemini.
epolanski
Changing chip is way too little of an accomplishment in 10+ years of leadership of what was once the biggest tech company on the planet.
The company isn't growing from years, and it's only saved by the positive offset coming from advertisement and app store growth.
wk_end
Listen, I don't really like the direction Apple has taken either, but since Tim Cook became CEO of Apple in August 2011 the company's stock went from like $15 to like $275; it had a value of $400 billion and now it's worth $4 trillion, ten times as much. Any characterization of him as some kind of failure who killed Apple ("once the biggest tech company on the planet", "isn't growing", "only saved"...) is completely out-of-touch.
manmal
It sailed on Jobs‘ monumental accomplishments, and still does. Including AirPods and Vision Pro, much of what fell into Cook‘s era was already well underway when Jobs died. Cook is a fantastic executor, fulfilling Jobs‘ legacy. But the tank is empty now, has been for a while.
sharts
How can we be sure this is specifically due to Cook and not the ecosystem overall?
A lot has changed since 2011. Some was likely Cook continuing execution of things lined up by Jobs. Some could just be tech sector in general, etc.
pshc
MacBooks outclass any other laptop in the market thanks to those chips.
JKCalhoun
"…and it's only saved by the positive offset coming from advertisement and app store growth"
That has been part of the plan for a decade now since Eddy Cue was tasked with boosting Apple's income from "services". (It's worked pretty well for Microsoft.)
victorbjorklund
It’s not the only thing. The scale up of Apple is massive and so is the supply chain. Those are not really things consumers don’t see directly (just indirectly)
dude250711
With the right visionary, $2k phones and $500 textile cases will not be impossible...
wtallis
$2k phones has been a thing for a while now, with the folding phones. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold currently starts at $1700 and Google Pixel Pro Fold starts at $1800, and both are over $2100 for the 1TB models.
paxys
Appointing John Ternus is going to be a pretty clear indicator to investors that Apple plans on continuing its iterative hardware, manufacturing and operations focus and isn't looking to shake things up from a product or vision standpoint. Which may be the best move for the company (it has definitely worked for the last decade and a half), but I can't help feel that among all the large tech companies Apple is the one most at risk of a major disruption. It might not come tomorrow or even in the next decade, but whenever the next shift in personal computing happens (maybe AI, maybe AR/VR, maybe something else entirely) they are going to be caught unprepared and unable to adapt in time (exacly like the last generation of smartphone makers).
JumpCrisscross
> might not come tomorrow or even in the next decade
…what company do you think is immune from disruption beyond the foreseeable future?
paxys
No company is immune to disruption, but plenty of them have innovation and adaptation in their DNA. IMO over the years Apple has lost that. Look at Google, or Meta, or even Microsoft. Diversified income streams. Clutch acquisitions. Massive capital investments. Data centers. Moonshot factories. Self driving cars. AR glasses. Robots. Venture investing and dealmaking. Massive AI ambitions. Stuff they try might not always work, and sometimes fail spectacularly, but they still do it. Apple meanwhile has been perfectly content depending on a single product and the monopolistic hold on the ecosystem of that product for basically 100% of its revenue for the past two decades.
grumblingdev
Yes!!! Such great news.
Apple has really gone to shit. I am confronted by Apple performance and bug pain every hour of my life. I always think: how can someone think this is acceptable? Steve Jobs wouldn’t.
Everything is such trash I could go on for hours.
I realized a long time ago that if the person at the top doesn’t care then no one will. It seems hard to believe but it makes sense when you consider individual incentives, politics, and the complexity of software. Everyone wants a safe promotion and doesn’t want to take the risk to push things forwards.
Apple Silicon seems great but the Intel MacBook was the worst piece of shit ever so they kind of had to. I have a 2019 that was the top of the line but can’t do anything without overheating. It’s barely usable for any second laptop tasks.
rkomorn
> I always think: how can someone think this is acceptable? Steve Jobs wouldn’t.
The same Steve Jobs that was at Apple when it made the puck mouse? The overheating Intel laptops of the mid 2000s? The "you're holding it wrong" iPhone? The "unusably slow after two years" 11in MBA? The Cube?
He wouldn't what, exactly?
tptacek
Steve Jobs shipped a cordless mouse with a charger port on the bottom, the infamous hockey puck mouse, and a laptop that visibly discolored in the shape of handprints where your wrist rests. iTunes happened under Jobs watch and was unwound in the Cook era.
loloquwowndueo
Wow such anger.
> I am confronted by Apple performance and bug pain every hour of my life.
Why do you keep buying Apple then?
UnreachableCode
Is it at all possible he has an Intel Mac from 2018 that he hasn't been able to upgrade yet, likely due to insane cost?
Because that's my thing
sokoloff
I have an Intel MBP from that era. It’s showing its age, but still works well enough.
If I was going to complain about the performance of an 7-8 year old laptop, I wouldn’t do it on a tech site for sure.
rilindo
Person probably issued Apple laptops from work, which, funny enough is probably why they get performance issues, as work is going to drop in the usual CPU killing anti-virus and other corporate tooling.
chihuahua
Even without buying Apple, many jobs issue mandatory MacBooks. I can understand the frustration of having to deal with these. In my case, it's mostly the window management aspect of MacOS that infuriates me. I even spent $30 of my own money to buy uBar to make it a bit more usable. But uBar itself is buggy so it's not a perfect solution.
risho
their software is not great but they literally make the best hardware on the planet right now. you don't get to being a 4 trillion dollar market cap by being trash. they must be doing something right.
Gigachad
It's not great, just everything else is worse. Windows is unbearably broken and loaded with adverts. Linux has been fairly neglected for desktops with few corporate sponsors.
paxys
What are you talking about they just released a $300 sock for your iPhone.
enraged_camel
I don’t know man. I got an Intel 7700K when it first came out, and six years later it was struggling with modern day workloads. I didn’t blame Intel or Microsoft, I just upgraded and my performance problems went away. Not sure why Apple is held to different standards.
bigyabai
There is no light at the end of the tunnel, Apple's shareholders are using this process to manipulate the stock price. If the next quarter performs poorly then the move up the timeline, if they do well then Cook's leash gets longer. Tim needs to be gone yesterday, not in a few months.
jmcgough
Tim Cook at Apple was like Steve Ballmer at Microsoft. They scaled the company and made stock owners happy, but weren't true visionaries. I suppose there's a need for both types of leaders.
paxys
Microsoft's stock was flat for Ballmer's entire tenure. Investors were most definitely not happy, and that was the very reason he was forced out. Tim Cook meanwhile has grown the company 10x. It's an idiotic comparison.
gyomu
I worked with John in the 2010s, brilliant guy, very human too. Couldn’t think of a single better person at the company.
hackerbeat
Only Craig Federighi can turn the ship around.
JKCalhoun
Maybe. But Craig is the software guy, their tapping John Ternus suggests Apple knows their hardware is still what pays the bills.
tastyface
Tim Cook will be remembered as much for competently maintaining Apple’s course after Jobs’ passing as for flagrantly dismissing democratic regulation while cozying up to (and dining with; and giving golden statues to) authoritarian regimes.
Thanks and good riddance.
vlark
Bring back Woz.
usui
How serious is this comment? As a thought experiment, this intrigues me. Imagine Steve Wozniak suddenly pops in as CEO. What might happen to the company in the following years?
TheOtherHobbes
I doubt Woz would want the job. He's an engineer, not a corporate strategist, and he seems happy that way.
The ideal CEO would be a business strategist, innovator and thought-leader, and world-class marketer, but with enough of an engineering background to chase hard problems.
There aren't many of those around.
Jobs did okay at all four, mostly. Cook gets the first, mostly, and has adequate delegation skills for engineering and marketing. This works superbly when the engineering is world-leading (the M chips) and badly when the engineering is mediocre (the software.) The marketing has drifted towards attempts at luxury-consumer branding, which is an off-the-shelf pitch. It hasn't been a failure. But it has lost some of its distinctiveness, and it's a little incoherent at times.
Cook's still been hugely more successful than Sculley or Amelio. Sculley was a bland corporatist, and Amelio was very, very smart, but too much of an engineer to be good at the rest. He did really well elsewhere, but Apple just wasn't a good fit.
The job is a poisoned chalice. It's going to be extremely difficult for the new CEO to assert their authority over the established fiefdoms, keep the plates spinning, deal with a weird political and economic environment, and still create Apple-styled innovation.
PaulCarrack
I don't know if OP is serious, but more than once, his name has come up on this topic in discussions in the past that I've had with people in my social circle who work at Apple. He obviously gets much respect and is considered an engineer's engineer.
I don't think anyone would be against Woz stepping into to revitalize Apple. The real question is whether Woz would do it.
KerrAvon
Everybody loves Woz, for good reasons, but (a) he’s not a manager (b) he’s not executive material (c) he’s notoriously unmotivated (d) he hasn’t engineered anything significant since what, the mid-1980’s?
amlib
I would like to think it turns into VALVe
usui
Valve is privately-owned with its BDFL owning over half of it. It has never gone through a leadership transition. It could relatively quickly go entirely bad after Gabe Newell is gone.
unpopularopp
So more lootboxes and illegal underage gambling everywhere? Cool bring it on!
Also I'd imagine a Valve like Apple would only release a new phone or laptop every 5 years or so lol
lysace
I fear he lost that extreme edge in that plane crash.
cryptoboy2283
He's cooked
ProAm
Long over due, he's done great but Apple needs fresh eyes. Apple's Ballmer era is over.
PedroBatista
The type of guy Cook is, was the “best” and safe choice for a company like Apple on the trajectory it was. Now everyone is a multimillionaire on the bank but the culture inside is quite hollowed out. Good luck for the next guy, he’ll need all of it.
mmooss
Why do you say the culture is hollowed out?
Cook's been great for massively scaling Apple (and its stock price) up, but the art, vision, and soul of the company is gone. It's just a stock price maximizing lawnmower now, just like every other corporate stock price maximizing lawnmower. If that's what shareholders want, fine, I guess. But I'd be bored just manufacturing the same boring rectangles every year. I think Steve would have been, too.