October 14, 2005: Tim Cook takes the reins as Apple’s chief operating officer. His new role as Apple COO continues his upward climb through the company’s ranks that will make him CEO less than six years later.
“Tim and I have worked together for over seven years now, and I am looking forward to working even more closely with him to help Apple reach some exciting goals during the coming years,” Steve Jobs says in a statement.
June 18, 1993: John Sculley steps down as Apple CEO after a 10-year run. The Apple board asks Sculley to leave after AAPL shares collapse from a high of $4.33 in 1992 to a measly 73 cents.
Sculley hands over the CEO role to Michael Spindler before briefly taking the role of Apple chairman, prior to departing altogether.
April 6, 1939: John Sculley is born in New York City. He will grow up to be hailed as a business and marketing genius, eventually overseeing Apple’s transformation into the most profitable personal computer company in the world.
After a remarkable stint as president of Pepsi-Cola, Sculley will take over as Apple’s third CEO in 1983. He will run Apple for a 10-year period, guiding the creation of the revolutionary Newton MessagePad.
During Sculley’s decade at the helm, Apple will sell more personal computers than any other company. But most people still remember him for his role in kicking Apple co-founder Steve Jobs out of Cupertino.
As of Wednesday, Chief People Officer Carol Surface leaves Apple, the latest in a string of executives to do so. And she’s going after an unusually short two years of service for a top executive, according to a new report.
Other executive departures and role shifts include like Luca Maestri stepping down as CFO and longtime engineering exec Dan Riccio retiring.
Matt Fischer, the vice president in charge of the App Store since 2010, will leave Apple in October of this year. His departure will follow a major reorganization that splits the App Store team in two as Apple seeks to avoid further regulatory scrutiny.
One part of the team will oversee Apple’s App Store, while the other will manage third-party app marketplaces.
DJ Novotney first started at Apple in June 1999, and now he’s been lured away by electric-car-maker Rivian.
Over his two decades with the company, he helped design many iconic Apple products, including iPod, iPhone, iPad and more.
The head of the online Apple store and its Chief Information Officer are reportedly both exiting the company.
This follows on the heels of news that Apple’s head of design is also on the way out.
A former Lamborghini executive recently joined Apple to lead design of the company’s long-rumored self-driving car, according to a new report Wednesday.
As Apple works toward releasing an electric vehicle before the end of this decade, the addition of Luigi Taraborrelli, who worked for the fabled Italian automaker for 20 years, could accelerate the project.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is one of the best paid U.S. executives according to a new report. He pulled in a whopping $265 million in 2020 from his salary, bonus, and stock awards.
But that’s chump change compared to what Elon Musk made.
Stella Low is stepping into a position at Apple that’s been empty for years. She’s been named vice president of worldwide corporate communications. That puts her in charge of Apple’s public relations efforts.
She left Cisco to take the job with Apple.
Ron Okamoto quietly retired after two decades as Apple’s vice president of Developer Relations. He helped oversee the tools provided to third-party iPhone and Mac application developers, and helped set policies for the App Store.
His retirement comes as governments around the world are investigating whether Apple treats fairly the third-party developers who depend on the iPhone and Mac App Stores.
Benjamin Lyon left Apple after being with the company for 21 years. He worked on a variety of products, but most recently he’d been a senior director in the team working on the Apple Car.
But he’s going to go be a rocket engineer instead.
A job posting leaves no room for doubt that Apple plans more health-related devices. The company seeks to hire a project manager to develop “Apple-branded Health Hardware products.”
The company doesn’t have anything like this now. It’s instead mostly concentrated on building wellness features into Apple Watch, iPhone and AirPods. And selling third-party health devices.
Apple made it clear to executives that it won’t be enough to simply talk about protecting the environment. Starting in 2021, the amount of cash bonuses will be impacted by how well each executive lives up Apple’s values.
Much of Apple’s senior team, including 59-year-old CEO Tim Cook, are of a similar age. That means they’re probably not going to be in their roles for too many more years.
As Cook approaches a decade at the helm of Apple, a Friday report from Bloomberg claims that he and his team are “increasingly focused” on succession planning. That means cultivating its “next class of top managers” who could take the helm of the world’s most valuable company.
Apple on Tuesday said that Phil Schiller, the company’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, will move on to become an Apple Fellow.
Schiller continues to report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook in his new position, which involves leading the App Store and Apple Events. Greg “Joz” Joswiak takes up Schiller’s previous role.
Christie Smith, Apple’s vice president of inclusion and diversity, has left the company after two-and-a-half years in the role. Smith worked under Apple’s SVP of Retail and People Deirdre O’Brien.
Smith’s departure was reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by Apple. Her departure had been planned for a couple of months, but Tuesday was her last day.
Want to own the home of a former Apple CEO? Wouldn’t we all? Unfortunately, you’ll need to pony up $37.5 million to do so.
Belonging to Mike Markkula, the angel investor who played a critical role in Apple’s early days, the ranch is the largest single landholding in Central California’s Carmel Valley. Markkula reportedly purchased it in 1982 for $8 million. He’s been trying to sell it since at least 2013 — and has dropped the price substantially during that time.
A video by the listing agency, Hall and Hall, lets you take a look around.
Liz Schimel joined Apple’s news division in 2018, and was on board during the launch of News+. But the subscription service hasn’t seen much success, and now Schimel has left the company according to a published report on Tuesday.
Ruslan Meshenberg made the jump to Apple TV+ after leaving Netflix, a top rival of Apple’s new streaming service. As the former VP of Productivity Engineering, he brings years of experience to a platform that’s still getting off the ground.
In a feature piece based largely on background sources, The Wall Street Journal on Thursday profiled Tony Blevins, Apple’s vice president of procurement, giving a unique insight into the dog-eat-dog business of buying components from third-party suppliers for Apple products.
You may never have heard of Gerard Williams III, but for years he played a large part in designing every iPhone processor. He left Apple early this year, and is now the CEO of Nuvia, a firm headed by three ex Apple execs that’s designing its own chips.
But they aren’t taking on their old company. Instead, Nuvia will make processors for data centers.
Dr. David Tsay recently joined Apple, apparently to bring new features to devices like the Apple Watch that monitor the wearer’s heart. He’s an expert in the field, and also just left a position as Associate Chief Transformation Officer for NewYork-Presbyterian Innovation Center.
This is the second prominent cardiologist brought onboard in two years.
The first slate of Apple TV+ shows would seem to have little in common — they range from a teen comedy to a sci-fi epic — but the company’s top entertainment programming execs say they are all about relationships.
They also worked hard to make this new streaming service fit with the rest of Apple.
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ proposed “inequality tax” would punish large businesses that pay their CEOs vastly more than the median wage for employees. Apple is one of those companies.