Apple’s John Ternus will run one of the world’s most powerful companies; the job is a minefield

Over his 15-year reign as Apple’s top banana, Tim Cook has become instantly recognizable, powerful beyond imagination, and exceedingly wealthy. Most estimates peg Cook’s current net worth at roughly $3 billion, wealth that he amassed largely through performance-based equity awards as Apple’s market cap has grown more than 11x on his watch to roughly $4 trillion. But the job comes with plenty of baggage, too. Cook has also had to navigate two Trump administrations and one Biden administration – each with its own posture toward Big Tech, China, and regulation. Cook also faced down the FBI over encryption, spent years in court defending the App Store against accusations that Apple had turned the iPhone into an illegal monopoly, and made compromises to stay in the Chinese market that attracted a whole lot of unwanted attention from human rights groups. Not last, Cook watched the company’s most ambitious hardware bet — the Vision Pro headset — bomb with consumers. That’s saying nothing of the AI chapter that’s still being written, and, potentially, not entirely in Apple’s favor. Incoming CEO John Ternus inherits all of it.