Tim Cook reportedly woke up at 3:45 a.m. every day and once worked at a paper mill. Then he took over Apple from Steve Jobs

Today, August 31, 2026, is Tim Cook's final day as Apple CEO. He is leaving after leading the company for 15 years. But his life looked very different before he became one of the most powerful executives in the world.

He grew up in southern Alabama, the son of a shipyard worker. He worked at a paper mill in Alabama and later at an aluminum plant in Virginia before earning a degree in industrial engineering from Auburn University.

And when Cook eventually became Apple's CEO, he developed a reputation for starting his days long before most people had even opened their eyes.


In a 2012 interview with TIME, Cook said he woke up before 4 a.m. His morning began with email, followed by a workout, a stop at Starbucks and then a trip to Apple's offices.

That almost obsessive routine offers a glimpse into the man who inherited Apple from Steve Jobs.

Cook took over as CEO in August 2011, just weeks before Jobs died. Fifteen years later, on September 1, 2026, he is handing the CEO role to John Ternus.

The man who once seemed like an unlikely successor to Jobs leaves behind an Apple that is vastly larger, more profitable and more diversified than the company he inherited.

Tim Cook was never supposed to be another Steve Jobs

Jobs was Apple's visionary founder and showman. Cook was something else entirely.

Before becoming CEO, Cook was Apple's chief operating officer, responsible for worldwide sales and operations. His expertise was supply chains, manufacturing, inventory and making an enormous organization work efficiently.

That was precisely what Apple needed.

Cook had joined Apple after working at Compaq. Before that, he spent 12 years at IBM, eventually overseeing manufacturing and distribution functions for its personal-computer business.

At Apple, he helped overhaul the company's supply chain, close warehouses and rely more heavily on contract manufacturers.

His philosophy was simple: make sure the right products and components were available at the right time.

It was not glamorous work.

But it became one of the defining parts of Cook's Apple.

The Apple Cook inherited was already huge. It became something much bigger

When Cook took over, Apple was already one of the world's most valuable companies.

But the scale of the business changed dramatically during his tenure.

Apple's annual revenue rose from roughly $108 billion in the financial year Cook inherited to more than $416 billion last year. Its market value, meanwhile, climbed from hundreds of billions of dollars to several trillion.

The journey was not always smooth.

The iPhone remained Apple's biggest product, but growth eventually slowed. Apple faced a major slowdown in China, while iPhone sales became increasingly dependent on premium models rather than simply selling more units.

That forced Cook's Apple to look beyond the device that had transformed the company.

And that is where his biggest strategic achievement may have emerged.

Cook turned Apple's huge customer base into a second business

The iPhone remained the center of Apple's universe, but Cook built an enormous business around people who already owned one.

The App Store, iCloud, Apple Music, Apple Pay, AppleCare and advertising became major businesses in their own right.

Services revenue climbed from tens of billions of dollars in the late 2010s to more than $100 billion annually.

And services have something hardware does not have to the same degree: extraordinarily high margins.

That means Apple does not necessarily need to sell another iPhone to make more money from an existing customer.

The customer can subscribe to iCloud, buy an app, pay for Apple Music, use Apple Pay, purchase AppleCare or interact with Apple's advertising business.

Cook helped turn Apple's enormous installed base into a recurring-revenue machine.

Then came the Apple Watch and AirPods

Cook also had to prove that Apple could create successful products after Jobs.

Two of his biggest successes were products that initially looked like accessories.

The Apple Watch arrived in 2015. AirPods followed in 2016.

Neither replaced the iPhone. Instead, they became additional products for people already inside Apple's ecosystem.

The wearables, home and accessories category eventually became larger than the Mac business by annual revenue.

That is a remarkable change for a company whose name was once synonymous with personal computers.

Cook also oversaw the transition of the Mac away from Intel processors and toward Apple's own silicon.

The move eventually gave the Mac a new lease on life, while giving Apple greater control over the technology inside its computers.

But not every Cook bet worked

There was one major product gamble that has yet to deliver the kind of breakthrough Apple hoped for.

The Vision Pro arrived in 2024 with a $3,499 starting price.

Cook described spatial computing as a potentially transformative technology, but the headset has not become another iPhone-style phenomenon.

Sales have been relatively limited, and the product remains a much smaller part of Apple's overall business.

Cook also presided over the cancellation of Apple's long-running car project.

That is an important part of his legacy too.

The Cook era was not simply a story of successful products. It was also about deciding where Apple should—and should not—spend its enormous resources.

The quiet CEO who changed Apple's culture

Cook's management style was also noticeably different from Jobs'.

Jobs was known for his intensity and command of the room.

Cook developed a quieter, more collaborative approach.

He was described as an attentive listener and worked across Apple's divisions rather than relying on the kind of singular, highly visible leadership associated with Jobs.

That difference became particularly important after Jobs' death.

Cook did not attempt to imitate his predecessor.

Instead, he built Apple around operations, services, recurring revenue, premium products and an enormous global ecosystem.

From paper mill worker to Apple's CEO

That makes Cook's journey especially unusual.

The future head of Apple began his working life far from Silicon Valley.

He grew up near the Gulf Coast in Alabama. His father worked in a shipyard. Cook worked at a paper mill and later an aluminum plant before moving into technology.

He eventually joined IBM, then Compaq, and finally Apple.

By the time he became CEO, he had spent decades learning how enormous technology businesses actually function.

That background may explain why Cook's greatest contribution to Apple was not one spectacular invention.

It was making the entire machine run.