Apple COO Jeff Williams’ retirement is a major changing of the guard

Jeff Williams, Apple’s Chief Operating Officer
Apple on Tuesday announced that Jeff Williams will transition his role as chief operating officer later this month to Sabih Khan, Apple’s senior vice president of Operations as part of a long-planned succession. Williams will continue reporting to Apple CEO Tim Cook and overseeing Apple’s world class design team and Apple Watch alongside the company’s Health initiatives. Apple’s design team will then transition to reporting directly to Cook after Williams retires late in the year.
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
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“Clearly he wasn’t destined to be the Tim Cook replacement,” Bob Mansfield, the company’s former chief of hardware engineering under both Cook and co-founder Steve Jobs, said of Williams. “He’s about the same age as Tim, so that wouldn’t make much sense. The operations team at Apple is really going to miss Jeff.”

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MacDailyNews Take: Right.
Tim Cook is 58 years old. Jeff Williams is 56. If all goes well, by the time Tim Cook retires, Williams will be of retirement age, too. – MacDailyNews, July 22, 2019
Gurman continues:
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“Jeff’s importance and contributions to Apple have been enormous, although perhaps not always obvious to the general public,” said Tony Blevins, a former Apple operations vice president who reported to Williams until the end of 2022. “As a shareholder, I am saddened. Time takes its toll, and it’s almost as if the band is dissolving. Jeff will be sorely missed.”
Mansfield added that Williams will be difficult to replace given that he “had a lot of tentacles” and responsibilities across the company.
“Sabih is very much cut from the Tim Cook cloth,” said Matthew Moore, a former Apple operations engineer. “Jeff was a little more product-minded; Sabih is just a really brilliant operator and methodical in the same way that Tim would operate.”

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MacDailyNews Take: Apple fairly cries out for a visionary leader.
Since the entire C-Suite seems to have missed the GenAI paradigm shift, the BoD should look outside the company for a brilliant young talent to lead Apple into a fruitful next chapter, rekindling its spirit of innovation.
An operations manager “cut from the Tim Cook cloth” is fine. That’s exactly what Apple needs; way less China though, for Jobs sake! Kahn should, and likely will, accelerate the diversification of production out of CCP-controlled China.
However, it would be a disaster if Apple’s next CEO is also “cut from the Tim Cook cloth.” Apple needs a visionary focused on products and services; a passionate, charismatic “product person” who can deliver a compelling live keynote address.
The BoD should also skip the whole Tim Cook gets the Chairmanship reward after he finally retires as CEO. His billions of dollars of overpayment over the years are more than enough reward. A clean break from this plodding, dithering “Iterative Caretaker” period would be best for the company.
See also: Steve Jobs never meant for Tim Cook to still be Apple’s CEO in 2025 – MacDailyNews, July 9, 2025

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