Updike titled his account of that afternoon Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu — one of the greatest pieces of sportswriting ever published, about one of the greatest exits in the history of American sport.

Sixty-five years later, two of the most consequential business leaders of this century — Tim Cook of Apple and Reed Hastings of Netflix — have given us the corporate equivalent. No grandstanding. No extended farewell tours. No carefully staged vulnerability on a podcast circuit. Just a clean, disciplined exit. In a business culture that increasingly rewards visibility over substance, both men offered a different model. Neither built their careers around personal brand. They weren’t the story, and they weren’t trying to be. They focused on building institutions that would endure — and in doing so, reshaped entire industries: how we communicate, how we consume media, and how we spend our time.

Like Williams, they understood that how you leave is part of what you built. And in both cases, the exit was as instructive as anything they did in the corner office.

The Impossible Job Tim Cook Made Look Routine

Cook had the nearly impossible task of following Steve Jobs. Rather than imitate him, he redefined the role. Under his leadership, Apple became not just a product company but an operational machine and a supply chain marvel. Most companies make a tradeoff between scale and margin. Apple, under Cook, managed both — and that is extraordinarily rare. It requires not just vision, but execution at a level that compounds over time: thousands of small decisions made well, supplier relationships managed tightly, production scaled without losing quality. There is very little glamour in that kind of work. It does not lend itself to headlines. But it is, in many ways, the difference between a good company and a great one.

Cook also brought steadiness to Apple at a moment when that was exactly what the company needed. Following a founder like Jobs is not just a strategic challenge — it is a psychological one. The temptation is to mimic, to chase the aura. Cook did neither. He leaned into his own strengths and in doing so extended Apple’s trajectory in a way that few successors in any industry ever manage.

The Disruptor Who Kept Disrupting Himself

Hastings, by contrast, was a scrappy and visionary disruptor. His career is a masterclass in seeing where the world is going and getting there before the competition knows it’s changing. From DVDs disrupting Blockbuster, to streaming, to binge viewing, to collapsing traditional release windows, Hastings consistently moved ahead of the market. Importantly, these were not isolated bets. They were part of a sequence. Each move built on the last. DVDs created a direct consumer relationship. Streaming removed friction. Binge viewing changed behavior. Original content shifted the power dynamic with suppliers. Over time, Netflix moved from distributor to platform to studio.

Hastings also rethought how companies operate. His shift from the idea of a “family” to a “professional sports team” — where every position is constantly evaluated against the best available — wasn’t cultural rhetoric. It was a recognition that in fast-moving industries, sentimentality can be a liability. Performance matters. Fit matters. The willingness to make hard decisions matters.

The Exit Strategy Nobody Teaches

What is almost never discussed — and what may be their most durable contribution to leadership practice — is how both men handled succession. In many companies, leadership transitions turn into awkward internal contests: quiet bake-offs where senior executives are pitted against one another, with one winner and several visible losers. Those who don’t get the job leave diminished, sometimes humiliated, and the institution absorbs the damage quietly for years. Cook and Hastings avoided that dynamic entirely.

Their transitions were clear, deliberate, and respectful of the broader organization. They signaled confidence in the next generation without creating internal drama or uncertainty. That discipline is not just good governance — it preserves culture, protects the institution, and reinforces that the company is bigger than any one individual.

In an era of celebrity CEOs, there is something almost countercultural about that approach. Today, many leaders are rewarded for visibility, narrative, and personal brand. The performance can become the point. The storytelling can outpace the substance. Cook and Hastings offered a different model. The work was the point. The results were the reward.

Both men, of course, made mistakes. No career at that level is flawless. But over long arcs, they were consistently effective — grounded in strategy and innovation, willing to take intelligent risks, and honest enough about their own limitations to plan their own obsolescence rather than resist it.

What Williams Knew That Most Leaders Don’t

Great leadership isn’t about visibility or personal brand. It’s about making a series of high-quality decisions over time, often without recognition in the moment. It’s about building systems and cultures that outlast you. And, ultimately, it’s about knowing when to step away.

That last part is often harder than it looks. Many leaders, like athletes, stay too long. They chase one more win, one more cycle, one more moment in the spotlight — and in doing so, risk diminishing everything they built. Updike understood what made Williams’ exit so moving: it wasn’t just the home run. It was the refusal to cheapen it with a curtain call.

Cook and Hastings didn’t linger. They did the job. They changed the game. And then, like Williams rounding third and disappearing into the dugout, they left the field. No curtain call. No farewell tour. No tip of the hat. Just the record, standing on its own.

Hub fans bid kid adieu. And this time, the kids were in the corner office.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

Shares of digital advertising specialist The Trade Desk (TTD 2.15%) tumbled on Friday morning after the company reported its first-quarter results late Thursday. The sell-off added to what has already been a brutal stretch for the growth stock, which is now down more than 40% year to date.

So is the steep pullback finally a chance to get into a name once viewed as a high-quality way to play the shift of advertising dollars to the open internet? Or is the stock’s recent beating justified?

Despite the stock’s meaningful decline this year, I’ll be staying on the sidelines — at least for now.

A growth story losing steam

The Trade Desk’s first-quarter report wasn’t necessarily bad. The ad-tech company posted revenue of $689 million during the period, up 12% year over year, living up to the company’s guidance for revenue of “at least” $678 million. Additionally, customer retention remained above 95%, as it has for over a decade. And free cash flow stayed healthy, at $276 million — 40% of revenue.

But when viewed in the context of the type of growth the Trade Desk shareholders are accustomed to, it’s pretty disappointing.

Revenue grew 25% in the first quarter of 2025. By the fourth quarter, the growth rate had slipped to 14%. The first-quarter 2026 figure of 12% marks yet another step lower. And profitability went the wrong way, too. Non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings per share fell to $0.28 from $0.33 a year earlier, with adjusted EBITDA margins compressing meaningfully versus the year-ago period.

This is the kind of trend that should give investors pause. After all, even at much lower stock prices, investors are still paying for growth, given the stock’s valuation. Shares trade at a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.

Today’s Change

(-2.15%) $-0.51

Current Price

$22.98

Key Data Points

Market Cap

$11B

Day’s Range

$20.75 – $22.98

52wk Range

$19.74 – $91.45

Volume

2.1M

Avg Vol

20M

Gross Margin

78.63%

A tough macroeconomic backdrop and weak guidance

But here’s my main concern.

During The Trade Desk’s first-quarter earnings call, CEO Jeff Green indicated that the current macroeconomic environment is weighing on its business.

“The macro environment has certainly become more complex in 2026,” Green said. “Geopolitical tensions have increased. All advertisers and agencies are navigating a rapidly evolving landscape. Global economic pressures, wars, and tariffs have created an environment that is harder for some brands and some brand categories to grow.”

That backdrop helps frame management’s softer outlook for the second quarter.

The Trade Desk guided for second-quarter revenue of at least $750 million — an outlook implying year-over-year growth of just about 8%. This would be yet another notable step down from the 12% growth posted in Q1.

During the earnings call, management cited the macroeconomic environment as one of the factors behind the company’s lower growth rates in 2026. But here’s the issue. There’s no guarantee that the global economy will improve anytime soon, and you can’t rule out things getting worse before they get better. Tariff policies remain unsettled, and geopolitical tensions could take years to ease. Further, new economic issues could arise.

Sure, The Trade Desk’s stock isn’t priced like it was a year ago. Shares are down sharply from their 52-week high of $91.45, and the stock’s forward price-to-earnings ratio has compressed substantially to just 19. But cheaper isn’t the same as cheap enough — not when revenue growth has dropped from the mid-20s to low double digits and is staring down a backdrop that may take a while to improve (or could even get worse).

I’d rather put my money to work in a business growing at strong rates relative to its valuation — one that doesn’t need a meaningful improvement in the macro environment to deliver. Until The Trade Desk’s growth shows signs of reaccelerating, or the stock comes down even further to compensate for these risks, I’m comfortable watching from the sidelines.