Apple CEO Tim Cook should be celebrating, and not just because he turned 65 in November. Instead, he's beset by questions about a retirement he hasn't announced yet — and stories about his executives heading for the exits.
We'll get to the who, but first of all: Why? Why would anyone with executive-level stock options want to leave Apple right now?
Cook's company may not be be the world's most valuable (after a remarkable run), but it has been growing steadily and is worth more than $4 trillion — within hailing distance of world leader NVIDIA, now that the latter's stock is sliding. By the time you read this, Apple might well be wearing the crown again.
And why is Apple so resilient, such a safe, steadily increasing bet for stock pickers? Three words: global iPhone sales.
The iPhone continued to massively outperform Android models in the third quarter of 2025, a report by analysts Counterpoint revealed. In fact, smartphone sales paint an picture of perpetual global popularity unlike any product before it — well, unless you count the Beatles as a product.
Like the Fab Four at their height, all four models of the iPhone 16 occupy the top four slots in the top 10. (Last year, for comparison, iPhone 15 models occupied the top 3 slots). Rounding out the top 10 are the Galaxy A16 5G, four other Galaxy models, and the iPhone 17 Pro Max.
That too is new. The just-released iPhone 16 models didn't penetrate the top 10 in last year's third quarter. But the just-released top-of-the-line iPhone 17 cracked the top 10 even though it had "limited availability" at the end of the period, Counterpoint notes.
Who's out at Apple?
An unprecedented flurry of executive departure announcements roiled Apple in the last week, and each seemed to portend something bad for the company's direction — until you dug deeper into each one of them.
First came John Giannandrea, Apple Senior VP of Machine Learning and AI. At a time when Apple Intelligence is racing to catch up (and may soon be driven by Android nemesis Google and its Gemini model), and given that Meta has poached a lot of Apple AI talent this year, that didn't sound good!
But Giannandrea may not be any great loss, and not just because he's responsible for Siri in its current iteration. Check out his replacement, Amar Subramanya — one of the people responsible for releasing Google Gemini in 2023.
In other words, Cook is doing exactly what you'd expect if you were forced to use Gemini for now, but really wanted to nail your in-house AI model. The fact that Subramanya was hired to work on AI at Microsoft six months ago, but left for Apple regardless, is a pretty big vote of confidence in Cook's company (especially given Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI).
Then came Apple design chief Alan Dye, who gave the world Liquid Glass — the translucent icon thing in iOS 26 that has, to say the least, divided users. Dye is departing to become head of design at Meta, news which itself divided longtime Apple watchers. Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, who broke the story, called it "a big loss for Apple."
But again, this is only half the story of an executive departure. Dye's replacement, Stephen Lemay, is wildly popular at Apple; "everyone I’ve spoken to is happy — if not downright giddy — at the news," John Gruber, another veteran Apple watcher, wrote.
Gurman also reported that Apple chip chief Johny Srouji was heading for the exit — but in what may be a rare miss for Gurman, Srouji shot down the rumors by telling staffers Monday he wasn't planning on leaving "anytime soon."
Who else has actually headed for the exits this fall? There's general counsel Kate Adams — but she's retiring, just a little ahead of Cook. Then there's Lisa Jackson, the former EPA head who's spent a decade fighting the good fight on recycling Apple product components and nudging its operations towards being 100 percent carbon free.
If anyone deserves a break, it's Jackson.
Who's replacing Tim Cook?
Underlying all this supposed uncertainty at Apple, of course, is Tim Cook — the man who took the company from a market cap of $450 billion in 2011 to $4 trillion now — turning 65 this year and reportedly stepping back from the company in some way in 2026.
Officially, Cook isn't retiring anytime soon; in interviews, he presents himself as the kind of CEO who'd like to work long into retirement. And that has left some uncertainty about his successor, who can't be officially announced if Cook isn't officially leaving.
Except ... well, the fact that Cook's successor feels like the worst kept secret in Silicon Valley. Spoiler alert: It's almost certainly John Ternus, 50, Apple's senior VP of hardware engineering, and a 24-year veteran of the company who's worked on every iPhone and iPad model.
Evidence is legion. Gurman calls Ternus the heir apparent; so does Fortune. Ternus is featuring more frequently in Apple keynotes. He's understated and charismatic, very much a team player.
That's important for Cook, who can't abide ego-driven executives (unless they make fun of themselves, Craig Federighi style). The last sharp-elbowed kind of executive at Apple was Scott Forestall in 2012, and that didn't turn out well.
In other words, things are a lot more stable at the old reliable iPhone company than the surface-level executive departure stories make it appear. To get behind the news at Cook's highly secretive company, to borrow an old Apple slogan, it's necessary to think different.
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