It takes a lot to run one of the world’s largest companies, including a very early wake-up call.
Apple CEO Tim Cook wakes up before dawn and starts his day by reading hundreds of feedback emails from customers before heading to the gym. Once he’s at the office, he works long hours and leads famously lengthy meetings.
His daily routine will likely change when he steps down as Apple’s CEO. On Monday, Cook announced that John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, will become the company’s new chief executive on September 1.
Cook is known to be a private person, but over the years, he’s shared glimpses into his daily schedule.
Here’s a look inside the typical day-to-day routine of Apple’s outgoing chief executive.
Cook typically wakes up between 4 and 5 a.m.
“I get up really early, I’m an early bird,” Cook said on an episode of the “Dua Lipa: At Your Service” podcast that aired in November 2023, noting that he generally wakes between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m.
He’s said that at that early hour, he has the freedom to spend his time as he sees fit.
“I can control the morning better than the evening and through the day. Things happen through the day that kind of blow you off course,” he told The Australian Financial Review in 2021. “The morning is yours. Or should I say, the early morning is yours.”
On an episode of the podcast “Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware” released in January 2025, he added that the morning is “the part of the day that I can control the most.”
“As the day starts to unfold, it becomes less predictable,” he said. “So I love the part of the day that I can kind of block out the world and focus on a few critical things and just be silent for a while.”
Once he’s up, he spends about an hour reading through his emails.
The first thing Cook does in the morning is check his iPhone, on which “he reads email, reviews overnight sales reports and studies countries where numbers are changing to keep his finger on the pulse of the business,” The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024.
“I spend my first hour doing email, and I’m pretty religious about doing this,” he said on Dua Lipa’s podcast. “I read emails from a lot of customers and employees, and the customers are telling me things that they love about us or things that they want changed about us. Employees are giving me ideas. But it’s a way to stay grounded in terms of what the community is feeling, and I love it.”
Cook said on the “Table Manners” podcast that he gets “probably 500, 600” emails per day, although that number can be far higher on “days where there’s something extraordinary going on.”
“I get notes both that are positive and some that are not so positive because people feel free to reach out and voice their opinion and I think this is great because it keeps my hand on the pulse of the company,” Cook told WSJ in 2024. “I try to internalize it and ask myself, well is that accurate or not, and not just quickly put up a defensive shield and say, ‘Why? What we’ve done is right.'”
Employees, too, have experienced Cook’s early morning emails.
“Tim wakes up really early and is very well capable of expecting you to reply back before the sun comes up,” one source told Business Insider in 2014.
Before he can head to the office, the Apple CEO hits the gym several days a week.
“I spend an hour in the gym, usually doing strength training, and I’ve got somebody to really push me to do things I don’t want to do,” he told Dua Lipa. “I do no work during that period of time at all, I never check my phone, I’m just totally focused on working out.”
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2014 that Cook didn’t work out on Apple’s campus, opting instead for a gym where he was less likely to run into his employees.
Cook told Axios in 2018 that working out “keeps my stress at bay.”
After his workout and a shower, Cook gets a coffee.
Cook told the Journal in 2024 that he drinks “many cups” of coffee a day.
He’ll typically have some “protein-based” cereal like Kashi with unsweetened almond milk, he said on the “Table Manners” podcast.
Once he’s at work, Cook hosts marathon meetings.
The Journal’s 2014 article reported that Cook’s weekly operations meetings could last five or six hours and that he was known to relentlessly question employees.
“‘Talk about your numbers. Put your spreadsheet up,’ he’d say as he nursed a Mountain Dew,” the Journal wrote.
Cook has since said he’s a big fan of Diet Mountain Dew, though Apple’s campus doesn’t stock it.
He also has no problem sitting in silence until he gets a suitable answer. As a result, the Journal said, employees had learned to be prepared, cramming for the meetings as if they were tests.
For lunch, he keeps it pretty simple at the Apple cafeteria.
The Journal reported in 2014 that, apart from the energy bars he snacked on throughout the day, he stuck to meals such as chicken and rice for lunch.
Cook has been known to eat his lunch in the cafeteria, Caffè Macs, with employees, unlike his predecessor Steve Jobs, who would typically eat with then-design chief Jony Ive.
“I have lunch in Caffè Macs and I take a dinner home from Caffè Macs during the week,” he said on the “Table Manners” podcast. “I typically go for the fish.”
Cook works long days at the office.
“I’ll divide the day in terms of spending time with product teams or spending time with marketing teams or spending time with the executive team, and we’re either handling issues of the day or hopefully our balance is more on working on future stuff, and thinking about what’s next,” he said on Dua Lipa’s podcast.
When he was COO, he was known for being one of the first people in the office and one of the last people to leave.
After-hours, Cook’s life is more of a mystery.
We don’t know much about how Cook spends his weekends and evenings, though he’s said he’s outdoorsy and enjoys hiking, rock climbing, and cycling.
He usually goes to national parks on vacation, he said on the “Table Manners” podcast.
He has also vacationed at the Canyon Ranch resort in Arizona, where guests spotted him keeping to himself, often dining alone and reading on his iPad, Fortune’s 2012 profile of Cook said.
He went caving in Slovenia in the summer of 2024.
He’s also talked about using the Vision Pro when at home to watch “Ted Lasso” and other TV shows while stretched out on the couch.
Áine Cain contributed to an earlier version of this story.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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