As Apple is preparing for its leadership transition, the incoming CEO John Ternus has reflected on his early days at the Cupertino-based tech giant, sharing a candid memory from a a 2024 commencement speech at the University of Pennsylvania. Ternus, who will succeed Tim Cook as Apple’s chief executive in September, described his first day at Apple in two words, ‘exhilarating and intimidating.” For those unaware, Ternus joined Apple in 2001 after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in mechanical engineering and working at Virtual Research, an early VR headset firm.In his speech at the university in 2004, he admitted that he wasn’t sure whether he belonged to Apple initially, “The people I met were so smart and so confident, and they knew so much more than me, but I’ll always be grateful that I wasn’t afraid to ask for help when I needed it.”
John Ternus’ first project at Apple
As part of his first assignment, Ternus worked on Apple’s plastic desktop monitor, the Cinema Display. He also mentioned that the project was detail-intensive and it involved ‘large, complicated clear plastic parts’. Moving ahead Apple pivoted to aluminium designs but Ternus said that this experience at the company helped him and also sharpened his ability to approach problems from different angles. Along with this, it also gave him confidence to keep experimenting until he found the desired solutions.
The road to becoming Apple CEO
Over the years, Ternus rose steadily through Apple’s ranks, becoming Vice President of Hardware Engineering in 2013 and Senior Vice President in 2021. He has overseen major product lines including the iPad, AirPods, and iPhone, and played a key role in Apple’s transition to its own silicon chips.Tim Cook, announcing Ternus as his successor, praised him as having “the mind of an engineer, the soul of an innovator, and the heart to lead with integrity and honor.”
What challenges await Apple’s next CEO
With John Ternus as the new CEO, Apple gets a hardware leader at a pivotal moment. While Apple has seen tremendous success with iPhones and products like AirPods, the company has struggled in areas such as mixed reality, generative AI, the smart home and autonomous vehicles, according to Bloomberg.Apple has been spending significantly less on AI investments compared to rivals Meta, Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft. The company’s AI-enabled Siri, originally slated for 2025, has been delayed until 2026 or later due to technical challenges. Apple has also lost several senior AI team members since January, many of whom have joined Meta’s AI and Superintelligence Labs during talent wars this year.Despite these concerns, Apple is expecting strong end-of-year sales, with year-on-year revenue growth of 10% to 12% for its holiday quarter ending in December, fueled by the iPhone 17 model release. The company’s shares are trading close to an all-time high following strong October earnings, though its roughly 12% stock price increase this year lags behind Big Tech rivals Alphabet, Nvidia and Microsoft.
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