Tim Cook will step down as Apple CEO and hand reins over to the iPhone maker’s hardware leader

Associated Press,
Tim Cook
Apple CEO Tim Cook testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 21, 2013, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent on Investigations as the panel examine the methods employed by multinational corporations to shift profits offshore and how such activities are affected by the Internal Revenue Code. Lawmakers want to know the tax strategy of how Apple, the world's most valuable company, based in Cupertino, Calif., holds a billion dollars in an Irish subsidiary as a tax strategy, according to a report issued this week by the subcommittee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

ASSOCIATED PRESS – 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’s market value soar by more than $3.6 trillion during an iPhone-fueled era of prosperity.

Cook, 65, will turn the CEO duties to Apple’s head of hardware engineering, John Ternus, on September 1 while remaining involved with the Cupertino, California, company as executive chairman. That’s similar to the transitions made by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Netflix’s Reed Hastings after they ended their highly successful tenures as CEO.

“It 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,” Cook said in a statement. “I 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.”

Although he never shook the perception that he lacked Jobs’ 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.

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