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Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down from the job that he inherited from the late Steve Jobs, ending a nearly 15-year reign that saw the company\u2019s market value soar by more than $3.6 trillion during an iPhone-fueled era of prosperity.<\/p>\n
Cook, 65, will turn the CEO duties over to Apple\u2019s head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, on Sept. 1 while remaining involved with the Cupertino, California, company as executive chairman. That\u2019s similar to the transitions made by Amazon\u2019s Jeff Bezos and Netflix\u2019s Reed Hastings after they ended their highly successful tenures as CEO.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company,\u201d Cook said in a statement. \u201cI love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ternus, 50, has been with Apple for the past quarter century, including the past five years overseeing the engineering underlying the iPhone, iPad and Mac \u2014 a role that made him a prime candidate to succeed Cook.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple\u2019s mission forward,\u201d Ternus said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The transition to a new CEO comes at a pivotal time for Apple. Artificial intelligence has unleashed the most upheaval within the industry since Jobs unveiled the first iPhone in 2007. Apple has gotten off to a rough start in AI after stumbling in its efforts to deliver new features built on the technology, as promised nearly two years ago.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Apple finally turned to Google \u2014 an early leader in the AI race \u2014 for help making the iPhone\u2019s virtual assistant Siri into a more conversational and versatile helper.<\/p>\n
Although he never shook the perception that he lacked Jobs\u2019 vision, Cook leveraged the popularity of the iPhone and other breakthroughs orchestrated by his predecessor to lift Apple to heights that seemed unfathomable when it was on the brink of bankruptcy during the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n