Who Will Be Next Apple CEO? Tim Cook Spills The Beans About His Legacy: 'I Don't Think About It. To Me, A Legacy Is Something That Is Defined By Other People'

In a conversation with popular tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, Apple Inc. AAPL CEO Tim Cook said he doesn't think about his legacy.

What Happened: In the interview, posted on Brownlee's official YouTube channel on Wednesday, Cook was asked about his thoughts on his legacy amid the ongoing chatter about the next Apple CEO.

Cook responded saying, “I don’t think about it. To me, a legacy is something that is defined by other people looking at you, not something that you define yourself.”

Adding, “I typically am always focused on the forward, not the rearview mirror. And that is a characteristic of Apple in general, we’re very focused on the forward… I feel the same way, personally.”

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He also acknowledged the inevitability of a leadership change at Apple, saying, “At some point, there will be another CEO, and my whole focus in life will be on making them successful.”

Brownlee then commented that Cook's response was very similar to LeBron James, who is widely considered one of the greatest all-around basketball players of all time.

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Why It Matters: Cook’s comments come amid increasing speculation about his potential retirement and the subsequent leadership transition at Apple.

According to a previous report by Bloomberg columnist Mark Gurman, there are rumors about candidates such as chief operating officer Jeff Williams, the head of hardware engineering John Ternus, the head of software engineering Craig Federighi, and Apple's head of retail Deirdre O'Brien, who also a trusted confidant of Cook.

Meanwhile, Apple announced its AI-powered personal intelligence features, dubbed “Apple Intelligence,” at the Worldwide Developers Conference or WWDC on Monday. 

During the same event, Cupertino also unveiled iOS 18, which included quality-of-life improvements and the integration of OpenAI's ChatGPT, a conversational AI model, into its operating systems.

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