Tim Cook says he timed his exit from Apple's top job to hand John Ternus a hit product cycle, not just a tidy succession plan.
Speaking with The Independent's David Phelan at Apple's UK headquarters, Cook discussed Ternus succeeding him as CEO on September 1. Cook said the handover "started years ago" and that Apple aimed for "a textbook example that people could look back to and learn from." He also said he wanted Ternus "to have some wind at his back," pointing to the iPhone Duo's launch in the coming weeks as that tailwind. Cook added he gave Ternus the same advice Steve Jobs once gave him: don't mimic your predecessor, play to your own strengths.
The comparison to the Jobs-to-Cook handoff is the real story here. That transition happened under the shadow of Jobs's illness and death, with Cook stepping into a job few believed he could fill. Cook got years to plan his own exit and chose to make it coincide with a product cycle he calls "unbelievably great," effectively tying Ternus's first impression to sales numbers Apple is confident about.
It's a tidier story than most corporate successions get, and that's worth noting on its own. Cook gets to call his own planning a "textbook example" before anyone else has graded it - and if the Duo underperforms, that framing becomes a lot less convenient.