Odd Lots · Thursday, July 23, 2026
Mark Gurman discusses the upcoming transition of leadership at Apple, with John Ternus set to become the new CEO. Gurman highlights Ternus's background in hardware engineering and product development as key to revitalizing Apple's product line, which has been perceived as lacking "sexiness" or groundbreaking innovation in recent years. Ternus, at 50-51, is seen as a long-term choice for the company.
“And so I think Apple needed to resuscitate its product design. It's hardware, it's product genes coming off innovative new things. And John Turnas, he was the senior vice president of hardware engineering. He was the guy actually in charge of product development. And so for a company looking to shake itself out of a product lull, putting you're new, he's quite new in his senior VP role, your new product person in charge of things. That makes a lot of sense.”
“The simpler answer is that John Turnas is fifty to fifty one years old. Every other person on the Apple executive team who could have theoretically replaced Tim Cook with their experience sixty plus, okay, some of them sixty five plus. And Apple the way they are run is their run for the long term. They wanted to avoid Bob Eygert a Bob Jpek situation where you're putting someone in who you know is going to fail or you know is going to retire in three to five years.”
“He's not particularly known as an innovator, or hasn't been particularly known as an innovator inside Apple. Some people call him a treadmill runner, doing the same thing over and over again. But he also has the awareness to know that Apple needs to do things differently, and he has the credibility and charisma to let Apple do things differently and quietly.”