Apple’s next CEO is a ‘hardware guy.’ Here’s what I hope that means
It’s understandable that following the announcement that John Ternus will succeed Tim Cook as Apple CEO, people will pore over his résumé for signs of how the company might change. Cook was famously an operations and logistics wizard, handpicked by Steve Jobs to manage Apple with his trademark efficiency. But his successor is more of a mystery. Ternus has been a senior vice president of hardware engineering at Apple for five years, and a VP since 2013, but beyond that he hasn’t been credited with steering the company in a particular direction. All anyone can really say for now is that Apple will be led by someone who is strongly experienced in hardware, which sounds like a meaningful change from Cook. Of course, Ternus’s stewardship will be defined by a lot more than how he chooses to manage the hardware portfolio. The state of Apple’s software and how it handles developer relations will continue to be hot topics, not to mention how it adapts to the destabilizing impact of AI. As CEO, those issues will land at Ternus’s door. {"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/multicore.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/12\/multicore-mobile.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003ESubscribe to Multicore\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E","dek":"Multicore is about technology hardware and design. It’s written from Tokyo by Sam Byford. To learn more, visit \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.multicore.blog\/\u0022\u003Emulticore.blog\u003C\/a\u003E","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"SIGN UP","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/www.multicore.blog\/","theme":{"bg":"#f5f5f5","text":"#000000","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#000000","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#ffffff"},"imageDesktopId":91454027,"imageMobileId":91454030,"shareable":false,"slug":"","wpCssClass