Apple’s Tim Cook is under pressure—but there are a few key reasons leadership experts think he’s still the guy for the job

Is it time for Apple CEO Tim Cook to clean out his office? You might think so after the past few weeks. But top experts on CEO successions counsel settling down and looking at the big picture. It shows why Cook might remain CEO for years and why that might even be the best course for Apple.

The recent depressing news included a top Apple AI executive’s defection to Meta just weeks after another high-level AI researcher had left—especially painful because Apple is widely seen as a laggard in the world’s hottest technology, AI. Last month Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference, often a scene of breathtaking new products or services, was “a snoozer,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. While stocks of Microsoft and Alphabet are hitting new highs, Apple is down 16% this year.

By earlier standards, Cook would have been on his way out in any case. In August he will have been CEO for 14 years, and in November he turns 65. But 65 is nothing special anymore, and no board of directors will hurry to dispatch a CEO who created far more shareholder value than his legendary predecessor, Steve Jobs, ever did. At least in theory, the options for Cook and the board are wide open.  So what should Cook and the board do?

Apple’s competitive environment now. “Two things are happening in parallel. One is AI, which is a much bigger deal than the internet was. The second thing is the evolution of the hardware. There’s a ‘good enough’ problem. Those two things in combination make for a more challenging environment for Apple.”  At the same time, some can see a temporary upside for Apple. “They don’t have the existential threat that Google has from AI. Apple still has the platform. They’re not losing revenue in that exchange. So if you look at where they make money, they actually don’t need a quick entry [into AI].  Still, the clock has been ticking for a while.

When might Cook be thinking of stepping down? “That’s really the foundational question. If it’s two years, are there any outsiders who could plausibly come in? Are there any boomerang people who could come back from outside of Apple?”  “Apple is less likely to go outside because of the cultural history of outsiders at Apple. It’s almost revered, the story of how outsiders almost killed Apple. We hear pretty consistently that Cook is thinking of an age 68 to 70 timeline.  He feels that, with AI, there’s some unfinished business.”

What kind of executive will Cook’s successor be? “The common wisdom is that they really need a product visionary, as opposed to the operational genius that he was.

Bottom line, what is the big-picture assessment of Tim Cook? For this the author turns to a business historian, Richard Tedlow, an emeritus professor at the Harvard Business School. Like any good professor, he asks questions. He starts by asking five crucial questions about Apple: Does it satisfy customers? Does it come from behind? Does it have a powerful corporate culture? Is it willing to admit mistakes? Does it have “an imagination of disaster,” a realization that things could go badly wrong? Approvingly, he answers Yes to all.

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