What Tim Cook built | TechCrunch

After 15 years as Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook will be stepping down from the role in September. 

On the latest episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and I discussed Apple’s big announcement. We reflected on how Apple has changed since Cook took over from Steve Jobs in 2011, and what challenges incoming CEO John Ternus will be facing.

“If you look at a certain camp, it is very much like, ‘John Ternus is a product guy and this is going to be amazing’ and it’s very nostalgic and going back to Steve Jobs,” Kirsten said. “But I think what people forget is that Tim Cook actually made another product, which was completely around operations.”

Similarly,  Sean noted that Cook has given Ternus a strong “running start” as “the company’s numbers just sort of keep going up.” But a running start doesn’t guarantee victory: “How much volatility is around the corner? Are we really looking at a situation [with] the breaking apart of a global economy, along with the rise of artificial intelligence changing how business gets done?”

Keep reading for a preview — edited for length and clarity — of our full conversation.

Anthony: The decisions that Apple makes also trickle down to a bunch of other companies, because there are all kinds of startups that maybe don’t build their entire business on the iOS platform, but certainly a significant part of their business comes on the iPhone.

Kirsten: I think it’s been really interesting to see the different pockets of the tech world responding to whether this is a good or bad move and [asking] what were the successes of Tim Cook and what does Apple need now?

If you look at a certain camp, it is very much like, “John Ternus is a product guy and this is going to be amazing” and it’s very nostalgic and going back to Steve Jobs. But I think what people forget is that Tim Cook actually made another product, which was completely around operations. And there has been some really interesting coverage, in even books that have done deep dives into this. His operations strategy is an Apple product. And it changed whole economies. 

The question to me is: What happens when a strategist and operations guy leaves? Who is filling that void? Because you can make great products, and that’s very important in the Apple universe for sure. But you need to have an operations strategy. And the world is changing, it isn’t the same as it was when Tim Cook was first building this out.

Sean: It isn’t, but  it’s hard to imagine a better running start to get as a new CEO than the company that Tim Cook has built. 

As much as people complain about some of Apple’s products stagnating, the iPhone hasn’t really changed the design in many generations, whatever new products you do get are very kind of niche and overthought, like the Vision Pro —  for all of that, the company’s numbers just sort of keep going up. They’re bringing in a ton of revenue. They make an incredible amount of money from the services business that Tim Cook spun up. 

They’re doing, in some ways, better brand-building than in a while, by even going out and making content, like winning an Oscar for a movie, there’s just so much going on. And it seems like such a sturdy business, even in turbulent times, that Ternus can not have to worry about what the first year looks like. 

We should say: Tim Cook is resigning as CEO in September this year. He’s also going to be executive chairman. So I think the idea here is, Tim Cook’s not going away and he’s still going to be your sort of shield against, and also sort of partner with, the Trump administration. Because he certainly has proved his ability to do that — sacrificing, I think, what many people would argue are some of Apple’s values in the process, in order to make sure those relationships are durable enough. Donald Trump even put a Truth Social post out about how Tim Cook kisses his ass all the time, in response to this news. 

So the question, with all that said, is: As comfortable a start as this probably is for Ternus, how much volatility is around the corner? Are we really looking at a situation [with] the breaking apart of a global economy, along with the rise of artificial intelligence changing how business gets done? Is that something that’s really going to be easy for him to handle? And who is he going to put alongside him to make sure he’s able to handle it?

Anthony: And I think related to that is the question [is,] Apple seems to have a very durable business right now, both on the hardware side and increasingly on the service side, but to what extent can it continue to have that business just playing the old hits? At what point does it actually need to create a new product category?

I don’t know the exact answer to that. And maybe the iPhone [and] the creation of the smartphone category, in particular, is a once-in-a-generation kind of thing, you can’t really expect that to happen every 10 years or more.

I think there’s also this interesting question around AI. It seems like that is not a category that Apple has had a lot of success in, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe whatever products end up breaking through there, that’s just software on your iPhone, on your MacBook, and Apple is fine not having to build all of that [and] instead doing these partnerships like it’s doing. 

But I don’t think that’s guaranteed. I think there’s probably a lot of stress and concern about what that future looks like.

Kirsten: Just really quickly, I was going to say that also Apple can and does have the cash on hand to make some big bets and acquisitions. And I’ll be really curious to see how John [Ternus] executes on that.

I mean, one of the places where I reported on Apple was the special projects team, Project Titan, the supposed Apple car, and that seems to have petered out and a lot of money was spent on that. Is he going to make any big bets? 

You guys were talking about cash on hand, and I think it’s more than $45 billion at the end of 2025. So they have a lot of money to play around with. Is he going to do anything with it in the near term?

Sean: The other thing I think we should point out is, as we talk about Apple having a durable business, the App Store is also really crushing it lately. Sarah Perez wrote a really good story this week for us about all the different ways that numbers are up in the App Store — installs, new releases to the App Store, it’s just a really fascinating look for anybody who wants to dig into some data of one of the biggest sort of software marketplaces in the world.

In a world where everybody’s talking about how your ability to vibe code anything is going to remove the need for distributed software, [the App Store] is clearly proving that wrong.