What John Ternus replacing Tim Cook as Apple CEO means

[0:00] apple the company has announced that john turnus will be the company's next chief executive tim [0:06] cook stepping down uh mr turnus is currently the svp of hardware engineering now my gut is my gut [0:15] says that that's a very tedious sounding title that carries an enormous amount of power uh tim [0:22] cook who will be stepping down as ceo will become apple's executive chairman the transition will take [0:30] place on september uh september the first um brian stelter uh is with me um i have to i mean regardless [0:42] brian of the end of an era nature which we can get into uh at some point um the the smooth [0:54] the elegance by which this has been done compared to say the disney bob eiger shambles or the you know [1:02] just or even our own companies had a few shambles in our times um but this is this is grande elegante [1:10] right apple once they get this right it's one of the most important moves in the companies uh you [1:15] know look so far this century right yeah tim cook very seamlessly took over for steve jobs now you [1:21] have john turnus taking over and if you looked at the press in recent months the trade press about [1:26] apple turnus's name was being signaled he was in line it was clear that he was likely to be tapped [1:32] we didn't know it was going to come today but we knew this might happen at some point soon and it [1:35] comes as you know richard at a time when there's been an investor narrative a media narrative fairly [1:40] or unfairly about apple falling behind falling behind in ai leaning too heavily on those incredible [1:46] iphone sales year after year bloomberg recently quoted sources saying john turnus knows he needs [1:51] bolder products and a strong approach to ai so today cook in a statement calling him a brilliant [1:57] engineer and thinker someone focused on every possible way we can make things better bolder more [2:02] meaningful and more beautiful he's the perfect person for the job so far though apple stocked down [2:07] just a little bit in after hours trading uh maybe that just signifies people expected some new ceo [2:12] relatively soon and they expected john turnus for the job but uh that's the news so far richard brian [2:17] i'm grateful brian stelter our chief media there lance with me editor at large at tech radar and look [2:26] lance you know this whole thing has gone full circle i remember of course um when tim took over [2:35] uh it was steve jobs past yes and we had those first two or three years was tim up to the job you [2:46] know he didn't have a polo sweater he didn't look like that he wasn't as cool um was he up to the job [2:53] um and again and again and again that was the question that was well clearly he was i mean he took [2:59] it to the most valuable company in the world um and now we're asking the same questions [3:04] few such shows as they say yeah i mean look i i think turnus is is certainly up for the job we [3:12] look we've been talking about john turnus taking over for i don't know the last like year uh there [3:18] been inklings around it um you know cook they were internal you know we knew that there were certainly [3:24] internal talks about uh it's a succession plan but um cook was basically the outlook was like i'm [3:29] sticking around as long as i can do this you know he wanted to stick around he just went through [3:34] apple's 50th anniversary where he gave so many interviews but you know at the big kickoff at grand [3:40] central uh the people who were there was tim cook john turnus and the head of global marketing those [3:46] were the like the three heads of states who were there cook took the stage briefly didn't say anything [3:51] and at the most recent biggest product launch they've had in a while which was the macbook neo [3:57] there wasn't even uh tim cook in the video so i think there were all these signs but as far as [4:02] turnus being up for the job he understands apple he's obviously a really hardware guy my apple's [4:07] last like five or six years have been all about services massive business makes a lot of money tim [4:14] cook's done the right thing but it doesn't feel innovative it doesn't feel exciting so maybe it's [4:20] time for a little of excitement hardware excitement under john turnus does it matter name recognition [4:28] to the general public and i i mean well i i'm gonna challenge you you're not budging you're not [4:38] budging on this i'll tell you what i want to ask because because um companies rely on cachet they [4:47] rely on call in this particular case and to a certain extent does it do you need to have somebody who's [4:54] now you're still gonna say no i'm glad i'm glad you i'm glad you said that because you're right [5:00] it does rely on cool but you know what's cool you know what has the cachet apple that's been the thing [5:07] that's the reason why tim cook was able to step in in 2011 and the company didn't implode because it [5:15] had been baked into the the company the company that built the ipod and the iphone and the ipad you [5:22] know it had that it had that from going back you know decades and i think that it's intrinsic to [5:29] the company and not necessarily the leadership uh and i will say that tim cook over the years [5:37] be kind of went from who's tim cook to oh my gosh it's tim cook come here let me exactly exactly [5:44] now i just wonder one other thing um about this uh this whole business how would you grade cook's [5:55] tenure um b plus to a uh i think that um glad you weren't marking my homework look from a from a [6:08] business standpoint he has grown this company in ways that i don't even think uh steve jobs could [6:15] have imagined but the fastest growing part of the business as i said before is services um there have [6:21] been some you know apple watch uh the focus on health really really exciting innovative probably [6:29] one of his signature moves vision pro uh ai i think that that's where we see some stumbles and the ai is [6:36] really kind of hung around like is not the most important technological innovation and tim cook [6:44] hasn't quite solved it for apple now lance i i want to finish just on a more personal note with cook [6:50] of course he came out in 2014 um in an article uh as as gay and and it was i mean everybody knew [7:03] so it wasn't like i mean anybody who knew who knew knew but it was considered a major moment [7:09] just because a he said it b he made out how important he was and then he let and then he left [7:17] it alone and got on with what he was supposed to do which was run apple he didn't sort of wear wear [7:22] wear it on his sleeve on a daily basis and i think you know that is something that he advanced the lgbt [7:31] agenda in the corporate world quite considerably yeah i i look i think it was a really important [7:37] uh moment for business for the tech industry uh for leadership um i think it's you know i think tim [7:45] cook's sort of casual openness like you said people knew but it wasn't something that people were like [7:51] so what and then he said it because i think he felt that it maybe would help other people that was [7:56] fantastic i think that that in recent years there have been some questions about you know where tim cook [8:02] has stood as far as support of diverse communities because of his closeness seeming closeness to the [8:09] trump administration but for the first time you noticed he answered that question in recent weeks [8:14] about why he talks to them and and i've always said this to people if you look at apple they've kept [8:20] their dei and i think that's because of tim cook you know a red line that he's going to continue to [8:25] have that as part of the company and i'll tell you something it's very easy for everybody else to [8:28] criticize when when you you cozy up to the administration or whatever but you don't have [8:34] the responsibility of hundreds of thousands of jobs and families and incomes and things like [8:39] all right lance grateful that you're with me tonight thank you for coming on so quickly [8:42] just what we needed to hear tonight thank you we'll have more