Apple CEO Tim Cook, who turns 61 in November, is likely to remain Apple’s CEO into 2025 since that’s when 1 million shares designed to keep him at the helm finish paying out. The belief inside Apple, Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg News, is that Cook just wants to stick around for one more major new product category, which is likely to be augmented reality glasses.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
In 2011, Cook had the impossible task of filling the shoes of Steve Jobs, a one-of-a-kind product mind. Of course, Cook could never top Jobs’s legacy, but he successfully charted his own path as Apple’s CEO.
The belief inside Apple is that Cook just wants to stick around for one more major new product category, which is likely to be augmented reality glasses rather than a car — something that’s even further out. He also understands that running a Silicon Valley company is typically a young person’s game, and he’s not going to stay far beyond his prime.
Apple plans to unveil a mixed reality headset — which blends AR and VR — next year, but AR glasses that are small enough to resemble classic frames are in development for a launch in the middle of the decade. Of course, Cook could decide to stay on longer (or shorter), but the combination of factors — the shares paying out in 2025, the launch of the glasses, Cook already saying he probably won’t be in the job in 10 more years and his age — leads me to believe he’s going to retire sometime between 2025 and 2028.
MacDailyNews Take: We can’t wait for the release of Apple’s AR smartglasses!