Key Takeaways
- When Tim Cook stepped into the CEO job at Apple in 2011, Steve Jobs gave him a brief but defining directive that would guide his tenure.
- Jobs told him to focus on doing the right thing, instead of trying to make decisions exactly like Jobs would have done.
- As Cook prepares to step away from his CEO role, he is offering similar counsel to his successor, John Ternus.
When Tim Cook took over as Apple CEO in 2011, Steve Jobs offered him a simple but powerful piece of advice — one that would shape every decision he made as CEO.
“Don’t ask what I would do,” Jobs told Cook. “Just do the right thing.”
Jobs warned his successor against falling into the same trap that followed another legendary American brand. After Walt Disney’s death, he noted, the company’s leadership became fixated on guessing what Disney would have done, instead of focusing on the decisions in front of them. Jobs didn’t want Apple to make that mistake.
Now, another leadership transition is bringing the same principle to light. Apple announced earlier this week that Cook will step down, and longtime hardware engineering chief John Ternus will take over as CEO, effective September 1. Cook is moving into the role of executive chairman.
In an interview earlier this year with The Wall Street Journal, Cook parroted Jobs’ wisdom. When asked for the one piece of advice he would give his own successor, Cook said that he “would probably say the same thing” as Jobs: “do the right thing” without worrying about what someone else would have done.
“You can get in paralysis if you start trying to port yourself into somebody else’s thinking,” Cook said.
Cook urged his successor to “be yourself.”
“Keep a firm North Star on the values of the company,” Cook told the Journal. “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.”
Cook is passing the baton
During Cook’s tenure, Apple’s value surged from about $350 billion to $4 trillion. When he stepped into the CEO role, the company generated about $100 billion in total annual revenue; today, the iPhone itself brings in more than $200 billion each year. Apple posted a record fiscal year 2025 revenue of $416 billion, up from $391 billion the previous year.
Cook’s philosophy in life is simple: tomorrow is better than today. “There may not be a more important philosophy in life,” he told the Journal in 2024.
The idea reflects the notion that each generation stands on the shoulders of the generation that came before. It’s about “making sure that you’re passing the baton to somebody who can do better than you’ve done,” Cook told the Journal.
By the time he stepped into the CEO role, Cook had inherited a lineup of bestselling products, from the iPhone to the iPad, that had already become indispensable to millions of users. Apple hit one billion iPhone users in 2016, during Cook’s tenure.
Under Cook’s leadership, Apple has entered a new phase of expansion. He broadened the company’s product lineup with launches like the Apple Watch and AirPods, while also building out a services business that includes Apple Pay, Apple Music and Apple TV+.
Key Takeaways
- When Tim Cook stepped into the CEO job at Apple in 2011, Steve Jobs gave him a brief but defining directive that would guide his tenure.
- Jobs told him to focus on doing the right thing, instead of trying to make decisions exactly like Jobs would have done.
- As Cook prepares to step away from his CEO role, he is offering similar counsel to his successor, John Ternus.
When Tim Cook took over as Apple CEO in 2011, Steve Jobs offered him a simple but powerful piece of advice — one that would shape every decision he made as CEO.
“Don’t ask what I would do,” Jobs told Cook. “Just do the right thing.”
Jobs warned his successor against falling into the same trap that followed another legendary American brand. After Walt Disney’s death, he noted, the company’s leadership became fixated on guessing what Disney would have done, instead of focusing on the decisions in front of them. Jobs didn’t want Apple to make that mistake.
