A bombshell report signals that the end of an era is approaching, as Apple’s board reportedly zeroes in on a successor to one of the most successful CEOs in history.

For 14 years, Tim Cook has been more than just the CEO of Apple. He’s been the steady hand, the operations maestro, and the calm center of the world’s most valuable company. He was the man given the “impossible” job: follow Steve Jobs.

He didn’t just follow Jobs; he built an empire on top of the foundation, transforming a beloved $350 billion tech company into a nearly $4 trillion global colossus. But every era, even one as profitable as Cook’s, must end.

According to the Financial Times, that end is now in sight. The FT says Tim Cook, who recently turned 65, could step down as Apple’s chief executive as early as next year. This isn’t just idle tech gossip; the report states that Apple’s board has begun to seriously work out a succession plan.

And for the first time, we have a clear frontrunner.

To understand why this is such a big deal, you have to understand what Cook did—and what he didn’t do.

When he took the reins in 2011, the tech world was in mourning for Jobs, the mercurial visionary. The consensus was that Apple’s “magic” had died with its founder. Cook, the quiet, Alabama-born supply-chain guru, was seen as a mere caretaker.

What a caretaker.

Cook’s genius wasn’t in dreaming up the “one more thing.” His genius was in scale. He’s largely seen as responsible for Apple’s shift to outsourcing manufacturing, a move that allowed the company to build and ship hundreds of millions of devices a year with ruthless, metronomic efficiency.

While critics complained he hadn’t invented a new category-defining product on the scale of the iPhone, he quietly built two of the most successful tech products in history: AirPods and the Apple Watch. More importantly, he masterminded Apple’s pivot to a services-based company, turning the App Store, Apple Music, and iCloud into a revenue engine that’s bigger than most Fortune 500 companies on its own.

But his tenure hasn’t been without its share of controversies. He’s navigated intense scrutiny over Apple’s deep manufacturing ties to China, faced down regulatory battles over its “walled garden” App Store, and has recently been seen as playing catch-up in the generative AI arms race.

At 65, and after 14 years of managing that pressure, it’s no surprise he might be looking at the exit.

The Game of Thrones (Apple Park edition)

The timing of this news is no accident. The FT report follows the retirement of Apple’s Chief Operating Officer, Jeff Williams, whose last day at the company was literally last Friday.

For years, Williams—another operations-focused Cook protégé—was widely considered the “heir apparent.” With him officially out of the picture, the question of “who’s next?” has become urgent, and the board’s hand has been forced.

As part of Williams’ departure, there’s been a shuffling of responsibilities at the very top. Key executives have seen their roles expand, including Services chief Eddy Cue and head of software engineering Craig Federighi.

But the biggest winner of this reshuffle, and the man of the hour, is John Ternus.

So, who is John Ternus?

If you’ve watched an Apple keynote in the last few years, you know John Ternus, even if you don’t know his name. He’s the executive who gets on stage to talk, with genuine, engineer-level enthusiasm, about the new M-series chips or the titanium frame of the new iPad.

Currently, Apple’s senior vice-president of hardware engineering, Ternus, is, in almost every way, the anti-Tim Cook.

• Cook is the operations and finance guy.
• Ternus is the product and engineering guy.

Having joined Apple in 2001, Ternus is an Apple lifer who rose through the ranks. He’s credited with overseeing some of Apple’s most critical and difficult hardware transitions, most notably the Mac‘s incredibly successful move from Intel chips to its own Apple Silicon.

According to the FT, he is the frontrunner for the CEO position.

His selection would signal a major strategic shift for Apple. It would be a deliberate move away from a CEO defined by supply-chain management and toward one defined by product innovation—a “return to form,” in the eyes of some. He’s seen as a hands-on leader, deeply respected by the engineering teams, and a “product guy” in the mold of Jobs, albeit with a calmer, more collaborative demeanor.

Regardless of who ultimately gets the top job, one thing is certain: it’s unlikely to be an outsider. Tim Cook himself has said in the past that there is a strong preference for an internal candidate and that the company has “very detailed succession plans.“

It now appears we are watching that plan unfold in real time. The Jobs-to-Cook transition was about stabilizing a rocket ship. The Cook-to-Ternus (or whoever) transition will be about charting its course for a new, uncertain, post-AI, post-smartphone universe.

No pressure.