Read John Ternus' First Memo to Apple Employees as CEO

John Ternus officially became Apple's CEO today, with Tim Cook transitioning to a new role as Executive Chair. Ternus sent his first memo as CEO to employees this morning, praising Cook and sharing his excitement for Apple's future.

MacRumors obtained a copy of the memo, which you can read in full below.

Team,

Today, on my first day as CEO, I just wanted to send a quick note to thank everyone for the warm wishes. I also want to extend my deep appreciation to Tim for sharing so much of his knowledge and experience during this transition, and more importantly, for everything he contributed to Apple over the years. We're so lucky to have had a CEO who led with his values and with such decency and humanity. We are all better for it, and I'm so grateful he'll be our executive chairman.

I'm honored to be stepping into this role at what is truly the greatest company in the world, and I am so excited about everything we have in store. We have a huge launch next week that's going to be phenomenal. Thanks for everything you've all done to make it possible.

I'm just as excited about what lies beyond that, including the incredible products already in the works and the ones we haven't even imagined yet that we'll dream up and create together. There's no team in the world I'd rather build the future with.

More to come. In the meantime, thanks for your excellent work!

John

Ternus is a longtime Apple employee, having first joined the company in 2001. Prior to becoming CEO, he was senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, so he has a product-focused background instead of the operations background Cook has. Apple's leadership team has been reorganizing during the transition from Cook to Ternus, and the full effect of the changes will play out over the next several years.

Johny Srouji is now Apple's chief hardware officer, taking over the Hardware Engineering team that Ternus previously led. Former engineering VP and Ternus lieutenant Laura Legros is returning to Apple, and the product design team was restructured.

On his last day as CEO, Cook told employees he took "enormous comfort" in handing leadership of Apple to "someone as brilliant and wonderful and capable as John."

Ternus has been on stage during Apple events before, but the September 9 "Surprise and Shine" iPhone event will be his first as Apple CEO.