Fifteen years after Steve Jobs, Tim Cook leaves a dramatically different Apple

Cook exported the smartphone revolution from the US to the world and turned Apple into one of the most powerful and profitable companies on Earth After 15 years, Tim Cook is stepping down as Apple’s top executive. At age 65, he leaves behind a hardware juggernaut that, under his leadership, brought about a global smartphone revolution and transformed Apple into one of the most profitable publicly traded companies in history. With a reputation for logistical management, Cook first joined Apple in 1998, overseeing its worldwide sales and operations. In 2009, he temporarily began running day-to-day operations when the company’s legendary co-founder, Steve Jobs, took medical leave due to complications from pancreatic cancer. In 2011, just a few months before Jobs’s death, Cook took over as CEO. Filling Jobs’s shoes was seen as a tremendous task, but company observers say that despite a more subdued demeanor, especially on stage, Cook met the challenge. “Steve Jobs was never going to be an easy act to follow,” said Dipanjan Chatterjee, a principal analyst for market research firm Forrester. “Yet Tim Cook took Jobs’s legacy and transformed Apple into a durable, resilient financial powerh