Tim Cook's Last Day As CEO of Apple (9to5mac.com)
- Reference: 0185325006
- News link: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/26/08/31/1719253/tim-cooks-last-day-as-ceo-of-apple
- Source link: https://9to5mac.com/2026/08/31/read-tim-cooks-full-memo-to-apple-employees-on-his-last-day-as-ceo/
> Today is Tim Cook's [1]last day as Apple CEO , with John Ternus set to take over tomorrow. To mark his last day in the role, Cook penned an emotional memo to Apple employees today. In [2]the memo sent to employees this morning and obtained by 9to5Mac, Cook reflects on his time at Apple and thanks employees for all of their work. He also says he takes "enormous comfort in handing the helm to someone as brilliant and wonderful and capable" as John Ternus. "Few people understand what it takes to build products that change the world the way John does and I could not be more excited for his leadership," Cook writes.
"There is something truly special about Apple," writes Cook. "I am most proud of what an annual report could never capture. This place is proof that culture triumphs over everything. We share a belief that what we build matters, and that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to leave the world better than we found it. That purpose is part of what makes this place extraordinary. Apple helps nurture it, but I believe it lived within each of you long before you arrived here. It is what brought you to this company and what continues to drive the work you do every day."
He continues: "Together, we have created something far greater than any one of us could have imagined or accomplished alone. And that's the secret to our success. We bring out the best in each other. We lift each other up. We have made it possible to leave our 'dent in the universe,' as Steve once described it, because of who we are and what we believe, because of what we value and how we see the world. How fortunate we are. How fortunate I am..."
Cook also thanked the Apple community in [3]a post on social media, writing: "Sending lots of love to the Apple community on my last day as CEO. My title changes tomorrow, but the love I have for the Apple community never will. Thank you for being a constant source of inspiration. My gratitude is endless, and I'm excited for the next chapter!"
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2026/08/31/read-tim-cooks-full-memo-to-apple-employees-on-his-last-day-as-ceo/
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1w3gr2a/read_tim_cooks_full_memo_to_apple_employees_on/
[3] https://x.com/tim_cook/status/2094448088199078236
"leave the world better than we found it"? (Score:5, Insightful)
...by promoting a fashion-based culture of disposable products and fighting every attempt to repair old devices and keep them working?
By constantly making hardware incompatible every few years?
Re:"leave the world better than we found it"? (Score:5, Insightful)
The world is much better for him as he wanders off with hundreds of millions of profits gained primarily through treating customers like the dumbest dipshits on the planet. CEOs of megacorporations don't care about other people, if they did, they wouldn't have what it takes to become CEOs of megacorporations.
Re: (Score:2)
> ... hundreds of millions of profits gained primarily through treating customers like the dumbest dipshits on the planet.
Treating them "like"? Remind me, who keeps buying these products? /s
Re:"leave the world better than we found it"? (Score:4, Informative)
> by promoting a fashion-based culture of disposable products
It's funny people keep bringing this up. After seven years I'm still using my iPhone 11 Pro and see no need to replace it. In the same time frame my coworker has gone through two Galaxy S phones. The first hasn't had an OS update in four years. The second isn't going to get the latest OS update, so he's looking to upgrade again.
Cell phones used to have a usable life of a year or two. Motorola would completely stop supporting Razers after two years. You might get two years of device support from Blackberry, maybe a bit more if you were using their server software. Nokia was a bit better, Samsung was a bit worse. Apple supporting software updates for five to seven years on consumer devices is unheard of.
Re: (Score:2)
I have to agree with you. I'm am Apple user since early 2000s and I'm only on my third Mac. My wife swapped her iPhone last month just for the 2nd time since 2016.
Not to mention that in all of these cases, our previous devices were still up and running and we managed to sell them for a fair price.
Usually the people I hear claiming Apple devices are disposable never have really bought/used them.
Re: (Score:2)
> I have to agree with you. I'm am Apple user since early 2000s and I'm only on my third Mac. My wife swapped her iPhone last month just for the 2nd time since 2016.
> Not to mention that in all of these cases, our previous devices were still up and running and we managed to sell them for a fair price.
> Usually the people I hear claiming Apple devices are disposable never have really bought/used them.
I imagine many/most things, specifically here phones, are like this. They (can) keep working just fine even after they stop being supported by the manufacturer - which, arguably, should longer for most things - but some (many? most?) people balk at continuing to use them. Seems like planned obsolescence to drive continued new sales - and generate a lot of eWaste...
Others are content to keep using a device until they literally can't. For example, my first cell phone was a Qualcomm QCP-1900 I had from 1
Mixed feeling ... (Score:4, Interesting)
He did a great job overall, following Jobs was not an easy thing to do.
However he did overdo things with build everything in China to minimize cost. Never become dependent upon a single source. I think Apple has learned that lesson. Second sources are an engineering best practice for a very good and hard learned reason. Never put your fate in someone else's hands. With a real engineer coming in perhaps more attention will be played to such things.
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He collects massive amounts of data on Chinese citizens and then "Follows all laws and regulations". There is a reason the Chinese government takes such good care of their great friend. Very few companies in China enjoy such protected status.
Re:Mixed feeling ... (Score:4, Informative)
> However he did overdo things with build everything in China to minimize cost. Never become dependent upon a single source. I think Apple has learned that lesson. Second sources are an engineering best practice for a very good and hard learned reason. Never put your fate in someone else's hands. With a real engineer coming in perhaps more attention will be played to such things.
It's probably worth clarifying that this was done by Tim Cook in his previous job as senior VP of operations, and was long complete by the time he became CEO. But yes.
Dont let the door hit ya. Bye Felicia (Score:2)
Dont let the door hit ya. Bye Felicia.
Maybe we have a chance to see some real changes now. I *vastly* dislike the ditching of nvidia which really made the platform shit the bed until only recently with the latest M series. The Intel Radeon only days yuck. Magsafe had to come back. Now no way to get more than 1 gpu in any apple machine as I'm trying to spec massive parallel gpu machines for AI work. Dialed back the unified memory of the Studio... I just hate all of his decisions. The whole "have courage" thi
Re: Dont let the door hit ya. Bye Felicia (Score:1)
Why are you doing AI work with GPUs? For the cost of a pair of GPUs you can have a DGX Spark.
Re: (Score:2)
> . Now no way to get more than 1 gpu in any apple machine as I'm trying to spec massive parallel gpu machines for AI work.
Let's be honest, you're going to be using a Linux box for that stuff, even if Apple still sold a big tower with a bunch of slots.
Re: (Score:2)
> Now no way to get more than 1 gpu in any apple machine as I'm trying to spec massive parallel gpu machines for AI work.
Sounds like you're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole and blame Apple for that. First of all, for AI work, why aren't you using the Apple Neural Engine that has existed since the M1. Second, you can get external GPUs if you wanted. But again neither the Mac Mini nor the iMac explicitly designed for the task you want. I don't complain a Toyota Prius can't move large pieces of furniture.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole
Don't you mean [1]put a cylinder in the square hole [youtube.com]?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pDH66X3ClA
For you people bitching about Cook.... (Score:4, Insightful)
During his 15 year tenure:
* Stock rose 2,279%
* Annual revenue rose 400%
* Profits rose by 430%
Like him or not, he accomplished exactly what Apple paid him to do in his role.
Did nothing to Fix the Supply Chain. (Score:3)
What percentage of Apple products are made in the USA?
The vast majority of Apple products—including iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks—are assembled in China by major manufacturing partners like Foxconn.India and Vietnam:
Apple has shifted a growing portion of its assembly (especially for iPhones bound for the U.S. market) to countries like India and Vietnam to diversify its supply chain.U.S.
Component Supply While final assembly happens overseas, Apple does source some raw materials, semicondu
Re: (Score:2)
> What percentage of Apple products are made in the USA?
What percentage of consumer products in general are made in the USA? Very little.
Re: (Score:2)
On the contrary it sounds like he did a ton to fix the supply chain.
But he fixed it for Apple Shareholders and customers, instead of Americans in general.
As a Canadian, I'm probably happier buying from China than the US at this point.
Re:Did nothing to Fix the Supply Chain.m (Score:2)
> What percentage of Apple products are made in the USA?
Probably the same as Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Samsung products. Probably in the same factories that made Apple products.
> The vast majority of Apple products—including iPhones, iPads, and MacBooks—are assembled in China by major manufacturing partners like Foxconn.India and Vietnam:
So just like Dell, HP, etc.
Re: (Score:1)
> During his 15 year tenure:
> * Stock rose 2,279% * Annual revenue rose 400% * Profits rose by 430%
> Like him or not, he accomplished exactly what Apple paid him to do in his role.
Could you explain that first one, "Stock rose 2,279%" further?
Timmy Apple (Score:2)
Tim Apple left a company far more powerful and influential than when he took control. It's going to be a roller coaster to see what happens next.
Tomorrow's title (Score:2)
What's his title tomorrow? We had a CEO who got paid to stick around to show the new CEO where the coffee cups lived etc for about a year at $50k/month. He got that money for spending an hour a week in the office.
Gadget to Appliance (Score:1)
Cook spearheaded a phase of Apple's lifespan where it went from building avant guard gadgets (Jobs) to indestructible, robust appliances. Almost every developer I know develops on a Mac, they might use a Linux VM, but for the desktop and the hardware, they rely on Mac. Almost every consumer who uses an iPhone finds it to be a completely transparent experience, its just an appliance, and it always seems to work. I used my last one for 7 years, and it didn't break, I just got tired of it. Cook was responsible
Perhaps a new Product Red iPhone now? (Score:2)
Upgraded my iPhone 6 to an iPhone XR back in 2018 (got a deal which let me keep the 6, which I gave to my mom since she'd needed a new phone, while allowing me to get the XR without increasing my monthly bill) and, because I liked the deep red metallic colour, I got the [1](PRODUCT)RED [apple.com] version; it was also nice knowing a portion of the purchase price went toward AIDS research, but I mainly got it for the colour.
Now it's 8 years old and while it still works it's starting to show it's age, plus the lightning por
[1] https://www.apple.com/ca/product-red/
Good. Fucking. Riddance. (Score:5, Insightful)
Watching that guy grovel before that Orange Mussolini while giving it a golden trophy was truly an embarrassment to watch.
Re:Good. Fucking. Riddance. (Score:4, Interesting)
Cook was a maintainer, not an innovator.
I think you're overselling Jobs/Ive (Score:2)
> Cook was a maintainer, not an innovator.
I know we're supposed to worship on the alter of Jobs, but I like the Cook era. I hated Apple under Jobs and love it now. A lot has changed in the world so it's not just the 2 men, but I think Jobs/Ive were dead set on making Apple products generally horrible and removing features for the sake of their sense of design and elegance. Cook is the one who gave us iPhone Pros with MASSIVE batteries and macbooks with all the ports....shit we actually want. Jobs/Ive tell you what you want...and call you a moro
Re: (Score:1)
>> Cook was a maintainer, not an innovator.
> I know we're supposed to worship on the alter of Jobs, but I like the Cook era. I hated Apple under Jobs and love it now. A lot has changed in the world so it's not just the 2 men, but I think Jobs/Ive were dead set on making Apple products generally horrible and removing features for the sake of their sense of design and elegance. Cook is the one who gave us iPhone Pros with MASSIVE batteries and macbooks with all the ports....shit we actually want.
You mean shit we actually had before marketing got drunk and dropped their entire marketing department into a pitcher of beer.
And thus was born the IP-six-sevaaan era of fuck-your-removable-battery unitard chassis that eventually fed the idiocy of Bendgate.
(It's truly terrifying how much will be forgotten when greybeards die off and get AI-replaced by "Trust Me Bro, this is how it was.." )
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, the products were better under Cook.
Re: (Score:2)
Cook wasn't ever much of a product guy, but the changes that he made to Apple's supply chain management were a large part of what enabled them to capitalize on the success of the iPod and become one of the most valuable companies on the planet. What use is a brilliant idea that you can't execute on?
Re: (Score:2)
Apple took more risks under Jobs. But Apple made more money under Cook. And for those of us that neither use Apple products nor work there, our investment portfolio prefers Cook.
Re: (Score:3)
> Watching that guy grovel before that Orange Mussolini while giving it a golden trophy was truly an embarrassment to watch.
But will it be Cook or Ternus who changes Lake Ontario to Lake America in Apple Maps? Will it be the last act of capitulation and sycophancy by Cook or the first by Ternus? Cook will either be a hard act to follow or an easy one...
[1]Trump pushes Apple to change 'Lake Ontario' to 'Lake America' on its maps [bbc.com]
> US President Donald Trump has asked tech firm Apple to rename Lake Ontario as Lake America on its Maps platform to comply with his executive order changing the name of the Great Lake, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said.
> Burgum told Fox News on Monday that "the president has reached out to Apple directly", adding: "I'm sure we may be seeing that change coming up soon."
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2l80eq5lxno
It's what adults do (Score:3)
> Watching that guy grovel before that Orange Mussolini while giving it a golden trophy was truly an embarrassment to watch.
Grownups suck up their pride and do what's best for their company and appeasing his ego was undoubtedly good for the company...imagine the reverse?...he told Trump that his policies suck and he's a failure of a president...OK....is Trump going to change because Tim Cook scolded him?...see the light?...step down and let JD Vance run it for awhile?....you and I both know the answer to that. However, if Tim Cook stood up to Trump or ignored him, you know that petty thin-skinned failure of a president would ha
Re: (Score:2)
> imagine the reverse?...he told Trump that his policies suck and he's a failure of a president
So you obviously preferred Cook sucking Trump's dick instead. Noted.
If sucking dick is your job.... (Score:2)
>> imagine the reverse?...he told Trump that his policies suck and he's a failure of a president
> So you obviously preferred Cook sucking Trump's dick instead. Noted.
His job is to do what is best for Apple, not my sense of social justice. As a private citizen Trump can go fuck himself. If my job is to blow the president and 166,000+ individuals relied on me to do so or else they wouldn't be able to feed their families...well...I have 2 options...find a new job or suck his tiny mushroom-shaped dick and hope he doesn't ask for a finger in his ass while I do so.
Re: (Score:1)
Hello,
We would like to take you up on this offer. Present yourself tomorrow at 1600 pennsylvania ave, or else.
Re: (Score:2)
> suck his tiny mushroom-shaped dick and finger his ass while I do so.
Everyone here knows you would totally do it.
Re: It's what adults do (Score:2)
Adults don't kowtow to dictators. That's kiddie shit. No wonder it impressed you.