{"id":211813,"date":"2026-09-02T16:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T16:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/211813\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T16:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T16:50:07","slug":"apples-tim-cook-shares-the-4-a-m-morning-ritual-he-stuck-by-for-15-years-in-the-top-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/211813\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple’s Tim Cook shares the 4 a.m. morning ritual he stuck by for 15 years in the top job"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a 15-year run as Apple<\/a>\u2019s CEO, Tim Cook<\/a> has handed the reins<\/a> to longtime insider John Ternus<\/a>. It marks the end of an era for the world\u2019s most valuable company, as Cook moves into the role of executive chairman. And reflecting back on his time at the helm of the $4.75 trillion tech giant, Cook shares one daily leadership habit that pushed him to strive for success.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the past 15 years I\u2019ve started just about every morning the same way,\u201d Cook shared in a<\/a> community letter speaking on his tenure as CEO. \u201cI open my email and I read notes I received the day before from Apple\u2019s users all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since 2011, Cook has led Apple through a global pandemic, supply-chain upheaval, and the rise of AI\u2014and has read thousands of messages about the products all along the way. Apple\u2019s new executive chairman said customers would \u201cshare little pieces\u201d of their world\u2014from close calls caught by Apple watches, to capturing memories on their iPhones, to how their work has been changed since the dawn of the Mac computer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Whether it be heartfelt stories or complaints about the products, Cook says he combed through the messages daily, and said it\u2019s been an \u201chonor and a privilege\u201d to lead the company building transformative tech.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn every one of those emails I feel the beating heart of our shared humanity. I feel a sense of deepening obligation to work harder and push further,\u201d Cook continued. \u201cBut most of all, I feel a gratitude that I cannot put into words, that I somehow got to be the person on the other end of those emails.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook reads messages at 4 a.m. and reads hundreds of emails daily<\/p>\n

Before most people have woken up to start their workdays, Cook has already been reading customer comments online. The former CEO gets up right before 4 a.m. every day, combs through hundreds of customer feedback to emails to get a sense of what users are experiencing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI rise a bit before four, I like to take the first hour and go through user comments and things like that, and sort of focus on the external people that are so important to us,\u201d Cook told<\/a> Axios in a 2018 interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then after a one hour workout to manage his stress, Cook dives right back into what Apple buyers have to say. He begins his 5 a.m. ritual of 15 years: reading \u201cthe majority of\u201d the 700 to 800 emails that hit his inbox everyday. While many CEOs would delegate their flooded inboxes to their assistants, Cook said that<\/a> \u201cIt keeps my hands on the pulse of what customers are feeling and thinking and doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook is one of many emails who have embedded emailing into their daily routine\u2014while others have eliminated the burden altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n

CEOs are split on how to handle emails<\/p>\n

Just like Cook, billionaire Mark Cuban<\/a> religiously checks his inbox<\/a>\u2014and his email is even available to the public.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rather than sit through hours-long meetings, he prefers to sift through hundreds of messages; he starts his day checking his morning emails around coffee, showering, and taking his daughter to school. And just like the former Apple CEO, he gets in a workout session before getting back to his inbox. Having an assistant handle his messages would only \u201cslow things down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI receive around 700 emails a day and use three phones (two Android and one iPhone) to manage everything,\u201d Cuban wrote to<\/a> Business Insider in 2025\u2014ironically, over email. \u201cI\u2019d rather get 700 to 1,000 emails than sit in long, boring meetings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other business leaders are adamant on emailing around the clock\u2014even if it bleeds into the weekend. Uber<\/a> CEO Dara Khosrowshahi<\/a> revamped the company\u2019s work culture when he stepped into the role in 2017, quickly implementing new ways to turn things around. One such change included emailing back whenever<\/a> the need arises. If employees are \u201cnot performing\u201d well in the \u201creally demanding\u201d environment, then Khosrowshahi said they\u2019ll be shown the door.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of working hard is sending emails to the team on a Saturday,\u201d the CEO of the $155.7 billion ride-hailing giant said on the<\/a> Diary of a CEO podcast earlier this year. \u201cAnd if I don\u2019t get a response on Saturday, sending them an email on Sunday with a question mark. What\u2019s going on?\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian Chesky<\/a>, the cofounder and CEO of Airbnb<\/a>, prefers to unplug. He runs the company on his own hours, doing away with morning meetings before 10 a.m., and rarely touching his inbox. Instead of shooting out emails, Chesky said he opts to call and text: \u201cDon\u2019t apologize for how you want to run your company.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[Emailing] was the thing about my job that I hated the most before the pandemic,\u201d Chesky told <\/a>The Wall Street Journal last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a 15-year run as Apple\u2019s CEO, Tim Cook has handed the reins to longtime insider John Ternus.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23148],"tags":[2681,633,23894,12392,5030,2682,474,21412,766,26062,52882,52842,13989,2686,2344,1071,43459,53518,9291,2110,628,2689],"class_list":["post-211813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-john-ternus","tag-airbnb","tag-apple","tag-apple-ipad","tag-apple-iphone","tag-apple-watch","tag-brian-chesky","tag-business","tag-chairman","tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","tag-communication","tag-customers","tag-dara-khosrowshahi","tag-email","tag-executives","tag-john-ternus","tag-leadership","tag-mark-cuban","tag-messages","tag-morning-routine","tag-tech","tag-tim-cook","tag-uber-technologies"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/117202480248683341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}