In May 2024, Bloomberg ran a feature story by Mark Gurman under the headline, “Tim Cook Can’t Run Apple Forever. Who’s Next?” The subhead: “John Ternus, the head of hardware engineering, is emerging as a potential successor to the CEO.” The nut grafs from that piece:
There’s no reason to assume that a change at the helm is imminent. Cook may be older than the CEOs of the other tech companies at the top of the S&P 500, but he’s hardly the oldest person running a major corporation. “If Trump or Biden can be president at 80, Tim Cook can be CEO of Apple for many more years. It used to be automatic that CEOs are moved out at 65,” says someone who knows him. “The world has changed.”
While Cook hasn’t given any indication how long he’ll remain in charge — other than telling Dua Lipa it would be “a while” — people close to him believe he’ll be CEO at least another three years. After that, they say, he’ll start a charitable foundation to donate the wealth he accumulated at Apple.
If Cook were to stay that long, people within Apple say, the most likely successor would be John Ternus, the hardware engineering chief. In a company whose success has always come from building category-defining gadgets, the ascension of a hardware engineering expert to the CEO job would seem logical. Ternus, who’s not yet 50, would also be more likely than other members of the executive team to stick around for a long time, potentially providing another decade or more of Cook-esque stability.
Ternus is well-liked inside Apple, and he’s earned the respect of Cook, Williams and other leaders. “Tim likes him a lot, because he can give a good presentation, he’s very mild-mannered, never puts anything into an email that is controversial and is a very reticent decision-maker,” says one person close to Apple’s executive team. “He has a lot of managerial characteristics like Tim.” Christopher Stringer, a former top Apple hardware designer, called Ternus a “trustworthy hand” who’s “never failed with any role he’s been elevated to.” Eddy Cue, the Apple executive known as Cook’s closest confidant, has privately told colleagues that Ternus should be the next CEO, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Linking to Gurman’s report, I wrote:
I wouldn’t have linked to this if not for the above line about Eddy Cue. If Cue is telling people that, that means a lot. No executive at Apple is more juiced-in company-wide than Cue. Cook’s first action as CEO was to promote Cue, and Cue was arguably just as tight with and trusted by Steve Jobs.
It was two more years, not three, but Gurman was the first to report that Ternus was the guy at the top of the list.
There was no significant additional reporting between Gurman’s May 2024 Bloomberg report until November 15 last year, when the Financial Times published a blockbuster story under the headline “Apple Intensifies Succession Planning for CEO Tim Cook”, with four bylines: “Tim Bradshaw, Stephen Morris and Michael Acton in San Francisco and Daniel Thomas in London”. Bradshaw is the FT’s lead Apple reporter, and it’s no coincidence his name was first among the four. The article gets right to the point at the start:
Apple is stepping up its succession planning efforts, as it prepares for Tim Cook to step down as chief executive as soon as next year. Several people familiar with discussions inside the tech group told the Financial Times that its board and senior executives have recently intensified preparations for Cook to hand over the reins at the $4tn company after more than 14 years.
John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice-president of hardware engineering, is widely seen as Cook’s most likely successor, although no final decisions have been made, these people said.
People close to Apple say the long-planned transition is not related to the company’s current performance, ahead of what is expected to be a blockbuster end-of-year sales period for the iPhone. [...]
The company is unlikely to name a new CEO before its next earnings report in late January, which covers the critical holiday period. An announcement early in the year would give its new leadership team time to settle in ahead of its big annual keynote events, its developer conference in June and its iPhone launch in September, the people said. These people said that although preparations have intensified, the timing of any announcement could change.
So, per the FT in November, Apple’s plan was to name Ternus as the company’s next CEO “early in the year”, after their Q1 results (January 29) but ahead of WWDC (June 8). The halfway point between those dates was April 4; Apple announced Ternus as the company’s next CEO on April 20. Every single word of the FT report, in hindsight, was exactly correct. I can’t think of a way that their November story could have been more prescient. It was a home run. A report for the ages, like when CNet and The Wall Street Journal scooped the Mac’s transition to Intel processors on the eve of WWDC 2005.
My own take, back in November when the FT report dropped, was that it had the distinct aroma of a deliberate expectations-setting leak, and was almost certainly accurate:
That “several people” spoke to the FT about this says to me that those sources (members of the board?) did so with Cook’s blessing, and they want this announcement to be no more than a little surprising. [...]
I would also bet that Cook moves into the role of executive chairman, and will still play a significant, if not leading, role for the company when it comes to domestic and international politics. Especially with regard to Trump.
Cook moving into the position of executive chairman and continuing to play a leading role as the company’s political ambassador was my own speculation, and that proved out. Easy money, making that prediction.
One week after the FT’s report, in his Bloomberg “Power On” newsletter on November 23, Gurman wrote:
In October, I wrote that the internal spotlight on Ternus was “intensifying,” and that barring unforeseen circumstances he would be the leading candidate. But I didn’t put a date on when a change might happen. Then, around midnight two Fridays ago, the Financial Times published a report with three central claims: Apple is “intensifying” succession planning; Ternus is likely the next CEO; and Cook is expected to step down between late January and June.
The first two points are anything but revelations if you’ve read Bloomberg coverage and Power On, or have simply been paying attention to the realities of Cook’s age and tenure. The timing, however, is another matter entirely. It’s a huge deal that the FT did this: A respected publication should only predict the CEO transition date for a company of Apple’s scale with a high level of confidence — based on people legitimately in the know.
This is where I have concerns. Based on everything I’ve learned in recent weeks, I don’t believe a departure by the middle of next year is likely. In fact, I would be shocked if Cook steps down in the time frame outlined by the FT. Some people have speculated that the story was a “test balloon” orchestrated by Apple or someone close to Cook to prepare Wall Street for a change, but that isn’t the case either. I believe the story was simply false.
Gurman must be well and truly “shocked” by this week’s announcements, because as it turns out, Cook is stepping aside exactly “in the time frame outlined by the FT”. The FT’s report was not “simply false”. It was, in fact, completely true. The Financial Times, which truly is a respected publication (with no black marks on its record, like, say, Bloomberg’s to-this-day-still-uncorrected “The Big Hack” fiasco), obviously did have a high level of confidence in Apple’s plans, because they were, in fact, briefed by people “legitimately in the know”. Gurman’s reading comprehension is questionable as well, because the FT did not report that Cook would “step down” between January and June. The FT report spoke only of “naming a new CEO” and making an “announcement” between January and June. That’s exactly what happened. Nor is anyone “departing” — but a change in leadership will occur in the middle of the year.
In January, Gurman reiterated his stance that the FT was wrong:
It’s just a question of timing. The Financial Times reported last year that the change would happen as early as the beginning of 2026. But let me be clear: This seems unlikely.
By pooh-poohing the FT’s completely accurate reporting as “simply false”, Gurman wound up poo-pooing the bed. Calibrate the grains of salt with which you take his other reporting on Apple executive goings-on accordingly. A humble correction and sincere apology to the Financial Times — and Tim Bradshaw personally — are surely forthcoming in this weekend’s edition of Power On.1
- And the check, I’m sure, is in the mail. ↩︎
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