- When Steve Jobs resigned as Apple CEO in August 2011, it marked the end of an epic 15-year burst of creative and commercial energy.
- Jobs’ successor, Tim Cook, was a skilled operator with no evidence of product vision.
- Even the most bullish Apple fans would not have imagined what’s happened since Cook took over.
It is human nature to have vivid memories of where you were when history happens. An earlier generation recited their whereabouts the moment John F. Kennedy was shot. I recall exactly what I was doing when the Challenger exploded (chatting with my college roommate) and when news of Michael Jackson’s death flashed on TV (having drinks with colleagues in Manhattan).
And I can pinpoint my location on Aug. 24, 2011, when my phone rang-it was a booker for Lou Dobbs at Fox Business calling-to inform me that Steve Jobs was stepping down as CEO of Apple. The world-famous entrepreneur was to be replaced by the still-not-particularly-well-known Apple operations chief, Tim Cook, whom I had profiled in Fortune three years earlier. Ten years ago this week I was at a playground with my daughter on vacation at the Jersey Shore, and so the best I could manage was a cell-phone interview.
Fox wanted me to address the uncomfortable question on everyone’s mind, then and for years to come: Could Apple survive without its singular leader? Jobs had been ill for a while, and he died less than two months later. The widespread assumption that Cook didn’t stand a chance would dog the new CEO for years.
