Cook was born in Mobile, Alabama, and grew up in nearby Robertsdale, graduating from Robertsdale High School in 1978. He took a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering from Auburn University in 1982 and spent the next twelve years in IBM's personal computer business, ending as director of North American fulfillment. He earned an MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in 1988, then ran the computer reseller division of Intelligent Electronics as chief operating officer.
In 1997 Cook became vice president for corporate materials at Compaq, but left six months later when Steve Jobs asked him to join Apple in 1998 as senior vice president for worldwide operations. He closed factories and warehouses and replaced them with contract manufacturers, cutting Apple's inventory from months to days. His group also made long-term deals, including paying in advance for flash memory from 2005, which secured supply for the iPod Nano, iPhone and iPad.
Cook was promoted to lead operations in January 2007, served as chief operating officer under Jobs, and ran day-to-day operations during Jobs's medical leaves. He became chief executive on August 24, 2011. Under him Apple added AirPods, Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro, AirTag and its own Apple silicon in the Mac, and expanded its services business. Its market value rose from $348 billion in 2011 to over $4 trillion in 2026.
Apple announced on April 20, 2026 that Cook would hand the chief executive job to John Ternus, its hardware engineering chief, and become executive chairman on September 1, 2026. In October 2026 Cook said in Shanghai that a mainland beta of Apple's AI features would arrive in late October, with live translation, writing tools and photo cleanup but no revamped Siri. He has also called memory pricing "a 100-year flood" as Apple guided gross margin lower.
SourcesWritten 16 October 2026
