Tim Cook's blunt advice to Apple's new CEO is already reshaping the company

John Ternus has been Apple's CEO for about a month, and he's already running the company very differently from Tim Cook. Instead of finances and the supply chain, he's spending his days with Apple's hardware engineers, right as the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro Max lead his first lineup.

Cook told the new Apple CEO to be himself

Bloomberg's lead Apple reporter Mark Gurman, in his latest Power On newsletter, shared a story Ternus has been telling Apple employees. Back when the two first talked about the handoff, Ternus doubted he was ready and told Cook he wasn't him, to which Cook dryly answered that he knew.

Cook's point was that Ternus needed to be himself, and Ternus says that moment stuck with him.



Gurman has a strong track record on Apple's leadership moves, since he named Ternus as Cook's likely successor long before Apple confirmed it in April.

Ternus hands finances and the supply chain to others

As CEO, Cook spent much of his time on operations, sales, finances and Apple's supply chain, along with public policy and Apple's ties to governments around the world. Ternus, who came up through Apple as a hardware engineer, is setting very different priorities.

He's mostly leaving finances to CFO Kevan Parekh and the supply chain to COO Sabih Khan. Instead, he spends a lot of his time with Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji and hardware engineering lead Tom Marieb, staying deeply involved in how products get built.



Gurman adds that Ternus has also taken a very hands-on role in Apple's design studio, which is a story of its own. It also lines up with a separate report from late September, which said Ternus wants Apple to ship products throughout the year rather than in spring and fall waves, with fewer layers of management.

There's a good reason for that push. Under Cook, Apple grew from a market value of about $350 billion to $4 trillion, and yearly revenue nearly quadrupled to more than $416 billion, according to Apple's own announcement of the handoff.

However, Services, a business Cook leaned on heavily, is showing strain. Apple's June-quarter results put Services at a record $30.74 billion, up 12% from a year ago, but the figure missed Wall Street's estimates and dipped from the previous quarter for the first time since 2022.

Apple isn't alone in putting a product person at the top, of course. Samsung named TM Roh co-CEO last November, and he still runs the Galaxy phone business himself, while Google's Sundar Pichai came up through product management, leading Chrome and later Android before becoming CEO in 2015.

What a hands-on CEO means for your next iPhone

The iPhone Duo ships on October 23, and Gurman says a smart home hub, a new Apple TV and a new HomePod mini are less than two weeks away from being unveiled.

Even so, the faster pace comes at a cost inside Apple, since engineering program managers have already been cut and more layoffs could follow. For buyers, the plain takeaway is that Apple's next big moves will likely come from its engineering teams first, with the business side following their lead.

Cook's best advice was to stop copying Cook

I like hearing that Cook's parting advice was basically to stop trying to be Cook. Apple spent the last decade getting very good at running a business, while foldables arrived on iPhone seven years after Samsung's first one.

What I'm hoping is that an engineer in the top seat means Apple takes a few more risks with its hardware. I'd personally love to see the first year-round launch from Ternus's Apple be something none of us saw coming.

More on John Ternus and Apple's new lineup:

• How we saw Ternus's rise coming
• Everything we know about the iPhone Duo
• Apple iPhone Duo

• Follow me on X and Threads

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