On April 21, Apple announced a CEO transition on Monday. John Ternus, head of hardware business, will succeed Tim Cook as Apple's new CEO starting from September 1 this year. At Apple, the CEO's office has always been a highly symbolic location. Leaders who emerged from here, such as Steve Jobs, profoundly changed the way humans interact with technology.


Steve Jobs is Apple’s most iconic CEO

The following are the 8 CEOs of Apple since its founding:

1. Michael Scott (1977-1981)


scott

The year after Jobs and Wozniak founded Apple, when both were still in their twenties, Scott, who had worked at Fairchild Semiconductor and National Semiconductor, two pioneer semiconductor companies in Silicon Valley, was hired to serve as a "mature and stable leader." In a 2011 interview with Business Insider, Scott said his role was to "handle the details," including "getting the company into manufacturing and all the other parts of the business."

2. Mike Markkula (1981-1983)

Markkula was Apple's first angel investor and chairman, and is known as the company's third co-founder, along with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. While serving as CEO, he also contributed his technical expertise by writing many early software programs for the Apple II, the company's first popular computer.


Markula

“Mike made a huge contribution,” Floyd Kvamme, Apple’s early marketing chief, told The New York Times in 1997. “But he didn’t like to be in the spotlight. He preferred to focus on the product.”

3. John Sculley (1983-1993)


Scully

Sculley joins Apple from PepsiCo, where he served as a marketing executive before becoming president. During the ten years he led Apple, Apple's sales grew from $800 million to $8 billion. He and Mr. Jobs eventually became embroiled in a power struggle over Apple's management and future direction, leading to Mr. Jobs's departure from the company in 1985.

4. Michael Spindler (1993-1996)

Spindler, who previously served as Apple's chief operating officer, became the focus of customer and investor frustration with the company. During his tenure, Apple repeatedly mispredicted demand for its products, lost market share and entered a price war that eroded its profits.


Spindler

"My personality trumped the facts in that situation," Spindler told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1996, just months after he was fired by Apple's board of directors.

5. Gil Amelio (1996-1997)


Amelio

Amelio, a former president of National Semiconductor and a member of Apple's board of directors, became CEO at a time when Apple's financials were in steep decline. He cut costs, halting projects including an operating system and laying off about a third of his staff. Under Amelio's leadership, Apple acquired NeXT for $427 million to replace the previously axed operating system. NeXT is a computer startup founded by Steve Jobs after he was ousted in 1985.

6. Steve Jobs (1997-2011)

Jobs co-founded Apple at the age of 21 and is the company's most iconic CEO, but his career path was not always smooth.


Jobs

After being fired by Apple's board of directors after a conflict with Sculley in 1985, Jobs went on to found NeXT, a computer startup focused on higher education and professionals. He returned to Apple in 1997 and successfully turned the company around and put it back on a track of rapid growth.

After returning to Apple, Jobs led the development of a series of innovative devices: iMac, iPod, iPad and iPhone. These devices sparked a disruptive revolution in consumer electronics and transformed entire industries, including music and telecommunications.

7. Tim Cook (Tim Cook) (2011-2026)

After Jobs died of cancer in 2011, his longtime right-hand man, Cook, took over as CEO. Cook joined Apple in 1998 from Compaq Computer Company and became chief operating officer in 2007. He reshaped Apple's product inventory management system and established a global operations network, making it possible for the company to produce hundreds of millions of devices every year.


Cook

Under Cook's leadership, Apple has grown into a technology giant with a market value of more than $4 trillion and annual revenue of more than $110 billion. He also revolutionized the company's supply chain and expanded its services business.

8. John Ternus (from September 2026)


Turnus

Ternus, 50, joined Apple in 2001 and rose through the ranks while overseeing the development of Macs and iPads. He will become Apple's head of hardware in 2021 and will become CEO in September this year.