John Ternus to become Apple CEO • Hacker News Board

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#891

Post by elxr » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 2:03 PM UTC

CarbonCycles wrote: post #389

I commend Apple for hiring someone internally...someone who climbed up the ranks and understands the DNA of the company. Also think it's cool that John Ternus has only a bachelor's degree with a very down to earth presence. I completely dig his LI page being really bare bones. I suspect Apple is about to experience another Renaissance era...

In the context of a tech CEO, any degree past a bachelor's has very, very little relevance in the real world.

"Only a bachelor's" is a ridiculous comment, and incredibly out of touch.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#892

Post by MetaWhirledPeas » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 2:04 PM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #858

keepamovin wrote: post #649

This is one of the more broadly normal HN-reaction threads to large public news event I've seen in a while. A lot of love for Apple, respect for the decision, and respectfully stated nuance. Surprising and good. I still haven't scroll down to the bottom, I don't want to spoil my impression. But it's great to see a positive reaction. Good way to mark the moment. Tim has been CEO for 15 years roughly, since Steve's pas…

> This guy seems much younger than Tim was when he ascended. I just checked. Tim Cook is 65 now, which makes him about 50 when he became CEO. John Ternus is 50 now.

I'd say a bigger difference is that Jobs casts a much larger shadow than Cook. Maybe Ternus will find it easier to move the company forward.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#893

Post by aurareturn » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 2:05 PM UTC

cubefox wrote: post #121

The NYT was right: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/technology/apple-ceo-tim-...

Plenty of people speculated that Ternus was the successor for a long time.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#894

Post by Closi » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 2:05 PM UTC

kyrra wrote: post #845

sshrajesh wrote: post #836

Apple stock grew 2322.5% during Tim Cook's tenure from 08/24/2011 to 04/20/2026. CAGR approximately 24.29% per annum. Pretty incredible.

To steal from Twitter: "Tim Cook took Apple from $350B to $4T" So? That's a 11X market cap increase. In the same time, MSFT saw a 14X increase, Google saw a 20X increase, Amazon did 28X, Facebook did 35X. We're not even going to talk about NVidia. Cook led Apple through a period where every tech company expanded. Yay for him? (It keeps going at https://x.com/politicalmath/status/2046428057255211032 )

You are cherry picking here - Why not include Intel, Samsung, Sony, HP or Dell etc on your list? Why include Facebook but not Twitter?

We are talking about the third largest company in the world by market cap - growing an additional 3X isn't particularly feasible (that would have made them twice the size of the next largest company).

Particularly with the hardware category it's easier to drop the ball and fumble rather than stay on top - just see Nokia or Rim.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#895

Post by alex_duf » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

vichle wrote: post #788

silon42 wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a power user, ThinkPad T (maybe P also) series is better for me (and it's not that close). I run Linux on it.

I also have a Thinkpad, but an X1. I'd trade it and my first-born child to get to run Linux on a modern MacBook. No offense to Lenovo, it's a great laptop. But Apples build quality is on another level, plus if I want to run local LLMs, AFAIK there is no better option. There's no way I'm going back to macOS though, that shit was bad 5 years ago when I switched and it sounds like it's gotten way worse.

Same here. I've had two generations of X1, my latest one (laptop, not child) is almost 5 years old and I honestly don't know which hardware to pick next in order to run Linux.

At work I have an M4Max 128G, and it's hard to beat that amount of compute, with that build quality.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#896

Post by delfugal » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

Can't believe they didn't rehire Gil Amelio.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#897

Post by phendrenad2 » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

Wonder if Trump will call him John Apple.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#898

Post by carlosjobim » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

steve_taylor wrote: post #558

VirusNewbie wrote: post #557

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airpods? They make more than most SaaS decacorns. How can you not credit that as a massive success that came out of nowhere?

It's a stealth subscription product. People are losing those things all the time.

Like all other bluetooth in-ear phones.

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#899

Post by rdbl27 » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

danielrhodes wrote: post #79

I think Tim Cook took Steve Job's vision and really took it to the moon. If you think about the last 15 years, Apple has really become the biggest possible version of itself without losing its values. Tech in general has changed quite a bit though. I don't know how Steve Jobs would have reacted to AI, and I don't know where tech itself would be if Jobs were still around. But I do think the next evolution is due and y…

Cook has done more or less the opposite of what Jobs did.

Jobs was all about bold innovation, hugely risky bets on gamechanging products.

Cook is a timid logistics optimizer, and he's good at that. We reliably get an iPhone with slightly more RAM, slightly faster CPU on schedule every year. No category changing products.

Innovation has stopped -- after Jobs, there is only minor incremental improvement

Re: John Ternus to become Apple CEO

#900

Post by randusername » Tue, Apr 21, 2026, 2:35 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #86

trsohmers wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software people, in my very direct experience, are terrible at hardware... While in jest, I do think most software engineer's understanding of hardware abstractions is pretty poor and does disservice to the hardware they run on. I know between Moore's Law and Gate's Law which one I would prefer to be the industry standard... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_and_Bill%27s_law

Generally speaking, I think both are true. Most people seem to have an affinity for either hardware or software, but rarely for both. Those who do are extremely unique. I don't mean that as an insult to anyone, just as an observatin having worked in both (and personally am much better at software than hardware, even though I enjoy both).

And then there is IC versus leadership. They're opposites. Lead times and supply chains are a headache in hardware, but tangible deadlines are great for keeping the project grounded. In software you have to invent your own discipline to keep the team on pace and bend over backwards to explain to physical-minded stakeholders why you can't build something with no lead times overnight.