Apple just named its next CEO, who will be taking the reins from Tim Cook this fall: longtime insider John Ternus. He inherits the $4 trillion company that became a global icon under late cofounder Steve Jobs, and Cook says he’d offer his successor the same advice Jobs gave him when he stepped into the top role: Never ask what I would do, just do the right thing.
“I would probably say the same thing,” Cook told the Wall Street Journal just weeks before the succession announcement. “Because you can get in paralysis if you start trying to port yourself into somebody else’s thinking.”
Ternus, who currently serves as Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will take the helm on Sept. 1. Meanwhile, Cook’s 15-year stint as CEO of the tech giant will come to an end as he transitions to executive chairman of the board. Although the tech industry looked a whole lot different when Cook stepped into the top job in 2011—AirPods were still years away from hitting the market—he has never wavered from Jobs’ leadership lesson. And now, he’s passing down the same wisdom in welcoming the next face of Apple.
“I would say: ‘Be yourself, keep a firm North Star on the values of the company,’” Cook continued. “Because if you get the values right, if you keep the North Star in clear view, you may be blown off course a little bit, but eventually you will come back to the right path. I have always found that to be true.”
Fortune reached out to Apple for comment.
The advice Jobs gave to Cook after he became CEO
Apple will forever be intertwined with Jobs’ legacy—but the late cofounder didn’t want that to stand in the way of others forging their own path. Just months before his passing, he shared advice with Cook that is now being passed down to Ternus.
“[Jobs’] advice to me was, ‘Never ask what I would do, just do the right thing,’” Cook told CBS News Sunday Morning last month.
It was a lesson that Jobs had learned while working with Disney; the Apple cofounder was also one of the three founding fathers of Pixar Animation Studios, purchasing the group from Lucasfilm in 1986. Entertainment behemoth Disney later acquired Pixar in 2006, and during his time working at the business, he picked up on a worrying trend.
“[Jobs] had watched Disney go through this paralysis of sitting around and talking about what Walt [Disney] would do,” Cook explained. “And he did not want that for Apple.”
Over the 15 years since, the outgoing CEO has never forgotten that lesson, and Apple has catapulted to trillion-dollar success. Now, Ternus is tasked with embodying that same philosophy in charting the company’s next era.
“I’ll never forget that, and it was such a gift for me, because he took off of my shoulder this question of, ‘What would Steve do?’” Cook continued. “I just put my head down and thought, ‘I’m going to be the best version of myself.’”
Meet John Ternus, the 51-year-old taking the reins of Apple
After months of speculation, Apple has plucked its successor from its own ranks.
Ternus has devoted nearly his entire professional career to working at Apple. After a brief stint as an engineer at Virtual Research Systems, he first joined Apple’s product design team in 2001, according to his LinkedIn profile. He arrived at a pivotal moment for the company when new innovative products were on the horizon.
By 2013, Ternus was promoted to vice president of hardware engineering, and later climbed to the senior level, joining Apple’s executive team in 2021.
Over his 25-year run, the mechanical engineer has led hardware engineering across Apple’s vast portfolio of products—including AirPods, all generations of iPads, and the latest iPhone release. But Ternus’s technical chops were only part of the appeal; Cook said that he has the “mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and honor.”
“[Ternus] is a visionary whose contributions to Apple over 25 years are already too numerous to count, and he is without question the right person to lead Apple into the future,” Cook said in a statement.
In reaction to the announcement of his appointment as CEO, Ternus said that he is lucky to have worked under Jobs and had Cook as his mentor. Looking ahead, he is “filled with optimism” about what the company can accomplish, and will always stay true to the principles set forth by former Apple leaders.
“I am profoundly grateful for this opportunity to carry Apple’s mission forward,” Ternus said in a statement. “I am humbled to step into this role, and I promise to lead with the values and vision that have come to define this special place for half a century.”
