How it is counted

Day 1 is the first trading day with that CEO in office. Day N is N calendar days later, not N trading sessions, so keynotes, earnings and weekends fall on the same day number for all three.

Market capitalization = split-adjusted closing share price × shares outstanding. Shares come from the cover page of every Apple 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC since 1994, stepped between filings and brought to today's share basis across the 2000, 2005, 2014 and 2020 splits. Between two filings the count is held flat, so intra-quarter buybacks show up with a lag of at most one quarter (under 1–2 % of market cap).

Added = market cap on the day minus market cap at the close before Day 1. The base is the day before, so Day 1 already shows how the market took the news.

Why dollars, not percent. Jobs started at $2.7B, Cook at $346B, Ternus at $4.62T. Percent flatters a small base and can never be matched from a large one; dollars added are what the market actually priced.

Time equivalents. "Jobs needed 3,595 days" means the first day on which Jobs's market cap added since his Day 1 reached the amount Ternus added.

The three clocks. Steve Jobs from September 16, 1997 (interim CEO; permanent from January 5, 2000) to August 24, 2011: 5,091 days. Tim Cook from August 24, 2011 to August 31, 2026: 5,488 days. John Ternus from September 1, 2026.

The newest era's chart. Until Ternus has 1,000 days of his own, his panel shows Cook's final year and the handoff on one date axis; after that it moves to the shared 5,500-day axis used for Cook and Jobs.

Sources. Daily prices: Yahoo Finance. Shares outstanding: SEC EDGAR 10-K/10-Q cover pages and balance sheets. Updated after each NYSE close (4:00 pm New York).

Every day has a page: ternusday.com/day/N. The daily card is posted on @ternusday.

Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Apple Inc. Apple, iPhone, iPad and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc., used here to identify products. Portraits are AI-generated illustrations, not photographs. For informational and entertainment purposes only. Not investment advice. No cookies, no tracking.