Steve Jobs made Apple iconic. Tim Cook made it a $5 trillion behemoth

When Apple announced back in 2011 that its chief operating officer, Tim Cook, would succeed its ailing, revered cofounder and CEO, Steve Jobs, many commentators wondered whether he’d be able to fill such big shoes. Cook was an even-keeled, soft-spoken technocrat who knew how to get stuff done, but hardly a visionary. Could he oversee the creation of society-changing devices as his boss Jobs had? Jobs had a knack for knowing what people wanted before even they knew it, an instinct that made Mac computers, iPods, and, above all, the iPhone some of the most sought-after products of all time.

“I don’t see [Cook] as the kind of person who could ever have the focus, the kind of maniacal dedication [as Jobs],” CNET editor Molly Wood wrote, reflecting the consensus at the time.

Wood and other observers were largely right. Cook, who stepped down as Apple CEO on Sept. 1, never assumed the Jobs-like persona of tech tastemaker.

Under Cook’s leadership, Apple didn’t come up with a new world-altering device; in fact, it introduced a few clunkers along the way. But at that stage of Apple’s life span, the company didn’t need another Jobs. It needed someone who could build a sustainable business around its blockbuster products and put to rest the question that dogs many flashy startups: Could it thrive without its monomaniacal founder? Cook ultimately built his own respected legacy, not in spite of being unlike Jobs, but because of it.

“The founder story of Apple was so mythical and present that Tim Cook could have disappointed everybody by just being himself,” says Jo-Ellen Pozner, a business professor at Santa Clara University. “But by being himself, he actually exceeded all expectations.” Cook’s biggest contribution to Apple, Pozner argues, was transforming it from a company that reflected Jobs’ cult of personality to one grounded in its values; one that’s centered on its customers—not the CEO.

Jobs hired Cook in 1998, then promoted him to executive vice president of worldwide sales and operations in 2002, and later to COO in 2005. As CEO, operational prowess helped him make crucial, if not dazzling, changes that built up Apple’s supply-chain resilience and constructed a closed loop of products and services that locked in customers.

When the bar for new-product launches is the iPhone, it’s all but impossible to clear. Cook missed that mark, but he still oversaw the introduction of hardware that changed how the world interacts with technology and consumes information. The Apple Watch, unveiled in 2014, met initial hesitation in the market. For one, analysts worried that women would never take to such a utilitarian, only moderately attractive watch, but they have—in droves. Along the way, the Apple Watch turned into a multibillion-dollar business. Two years later, Apple’s AirPods headphones were a hit with consumers, giving Apple a stronger position in the wearables market.

Rather than developing another iPhone-like product, Cook squeezed more revenue from Apple’s iconic device. He built a subscription ecosystem around the iPhone that touches many aspects of daily life. Users now turn to Apple for their tunes (Apple Music), data storage (iCloud), entertainment (Apple TV and Apple Arcade), exercise (Apple Fitness+), and payments (Apple Pay), all platforms introduced during Cook’s tenure that contribute to a services segment that reported $109 billion in revenue last year, second only to Apple’s iPhone business.

Still, critics say, Cook erased the aura of invincibility Apple had under Jobs by overseeing the rollout of several duds: an initially poor Apple Maps, a Siri that’s still not great, the glitchy AirPower wireless charging mat, and an aborted decade-long effort to build a self-driving car.

Crises littered Cook’s 15 years as CEO, and he handled them remarkably well in part because of the relationships he nurtured with suppliers and world leaders alike. He built deep, long-term agreements with global component suppliers, often prepaying vendors and locking in manufacturing capacity years in advance. That leverage let Apple jump the line when materials or capacity ran short (a helpful advantage during COVID). “He created an incredibly efficient organization relative to the rest of the tech world,” says David Yoffie, a Harvard Business School professor who’s written case studies on Apple’s business.

As a tech exec with high emotional intelligence, Cook—dubbed “the Trump whisperer”—deftly navigated the Trump administration’s sometimes erratic demands, mollifying the president with $600 billion in promised U.S. investment and winning crucial exemptions from Trump’s 2025 tariffs on China-made electronics without endangering Apple’s business. That balancing act has occasionally cost Cook his dignity, however; in April, Trump boasted on social media that Cook had called him to “kiss my ass.”

Cook has also won over the constituency inside Apple. Pozner says that Cook was an especially effective CEO because Apple employees respected him for upholding Apple’s corporate values, such as user privacy, and they were mostly happy to follow his lead. She points to the company’s 2016 showdown with the FBI when Apple declined the agency’s request for access to data on a phone belonging to the San Bernardino mass shooter. “That refusal really told everybody that Apple sees your privacy as the most important thing,” says Pozner.

Cook also distinguished himself from Jobs by speaking out on social issues like racial and LGBT equality, access to education, female representation on Wall Street, and immigration reform. He announced publicly that he was gay in 2014, becoming the first out CEO in the Fortune 500 at the time. Cook told Fortune in 2015 that he made the decision to come out in hopes of helping other people. “You want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripple for change,” he said.

Investors have already rendered their verdict on Cook’s tenure as CEO. During his stint at the helm of the Cupertino giant, Apple shares rose 2,000%, boosting its market capitalization as high as $5 trillion in July, making Apple the second company to ever hit that milestone. (The company’s shares remain in the neighborhood of that all-time peak.) That created a cash machine like no other: Apple had $147 billion in liquidity at last count, giving it enviable firepower for acquisitions and product development.

That war chest is itself a kind of legacy. One measure of a CEO is what they leave behind, and Cook handed off a company flush with cash, stable in its business, and equipped with a well-regarded successor. (Cook, of course, isn’t letting go completely; he will stay on as Apple’s executive chair.)

Cook’s heir, John Ternus, made his debut as CEO at Apple’s September event that showcased its Duo folding iPhone. As he assumed the job, Ternus faced his own set of filling-the-shoes questions. But onstage, the hardware veteran seemed set on charting his own course, just like his predecessor had. “We’re going to change the world in ways we can’t imagine today,” he said.

This article appears in the October/November 2026 issue of Fortune.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com