Apple’s Tim Cook and John Ternus react to the most peculiar Mac setup they’ve ever seen

YouTuber Markiplier — who has recently released a film called Iron Lung based on a popular indie video game of the same name — assembled a render farm of Macs in his bathroom. Outgoing Apple CEO Tim Cook and incoming CEO John Ternus both got to see the project as Markiplier found himself invited to WWDC (Worldwide Developers Conference) 2026 thanks to Reddit.

Tim Cook and John Ternus react to Markiplier’s setup

At WWDC, Markiplier got to meet both Tim Cook and John Ternus, and he posted selfies with the two on Instagram. He then elaborated on his visit on the Distractible podcast which he co-hosts with LordMinion777 (Wade Barnes) and Muyskerm (Bob Muyskens) in the episode titled ‘Doing Too Much’ which came out on June 15.

Mark detailed how he showed his render farm — a massive operation confined solely to a bathroom in his house — to both Cook and Ternus and got hilarious reactions in return.



Cook’s reaction was heartwarming, even though the render farm would make more experienced IT administrators cry (sorry, Mark!). Ternus, meanwhile, apparently just said “Wow!” with wide eyes.

What’s a render farm?

When making the film Iron Lung, Mark soon realized that hiring a visual effects company is quite expensive. As he has a habit of hyperfixating on certain tech-related tasks at times, he decided to go all in on his own render farm, which is a very long story with many ups and downs as well as a $3,000 power bill one month, and that probably only went up with time.

With a render farm, Mark was able to, you guessed it, render his movie by himself. Iron Lung needed tons of visual work because of the nature of the movie: diving into an ocean of blood.

Apple heard about Mark’s peculiar setup — 54 Macs stacked on top of each other in a bathroom cooled by multiple air conditioners — because of the home lab subreddit and sent him an invitation. The reason Markiplier got to meet Tim Cook and John Ternus is because no one has quite made something like this before with Apple products.

Understandably, reactions to Mark’s meeting with Cook, especially given the circumstances, have been hilarious to see.

The stars aligned for this one

It took a number of coincidences to get where we are today. Apple’s Tim Cook has seen 54 Macs in a bathroom — a setup that many have had a good laugh about — and seen the ingenuity of one very driven man.

Iron Lung was a very long time in the making and it was an immediate massive success upon release. So much so, in fact, that Markiplier got invited to the Oscars as well as the Cannes Film Festival.

Personally, I’m very proud

I’m sure that it’s been very obvious throughout, but I’ve been a fan of the three Distractible hosts for a long time. Seeing these two worlds — Mark’s film and the smartphone industry that I work for — collide like this has been an unexpected but very welcome surprise.

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