Begin the music. Gamers stroll clockwise in a circle. When the music stops, everybody sits in a chair. Large Tech is setting in movement its plans for the subsequent gen of lead designers, engineers, AI chiefs, and even CEOs.
In Cupertino, Apple execs with acquainted faces are retiring or decreasing obligations. Who’s in and who’s out? Effectively, chief working officer Jeff Williams retired in November, and the hypothesis is that CEO Tim Prepare dinner might comply with within the close to time period. Lisa Jackson, who has led Apple’s sustainability efforts since 2013, is now set to retire in January too.
There’s additionally the squad of Apple staffers who’ve been lured away to work with OpenAI, notably Apple’s former chief design officer Jony Ive after his impartial stint at LoveFrom. In 2024, Molly Anderson was named industrial design chief, heading up a staff of largely contemporary faces. Others have gone to Meta, comparable to Apple’s VP of human interface design, Alan Dye, who simply this week was poached to go up a brand new Actuality Labs design studio. At Apple, he’s been changed by long-time UI designer Stephen Lemay. Phew.
On this swirl of shifting expertise, John Ternus, who has labored for Apple since 2001, and served as SVP of {hardware} engineering for the final 4 years, reporting on to Tim Prepare dinner, is rising because the frontrunner to succeed Prepare dinner as Apple CEO, reportedly as quickly as subsequent 12 months. WIRED requested Apple for remark however didn’t hear again earlier than publication.
Alongside a gradual drip of “leaks” on succession planning and Ternus’ place on the entrance of the pack, since 2023, Ternus has been given extra prominence at product launch occasions. He introduced the iPhone Air onstage this previous September, and has appeared alongside different senior Apple leaders in press interviews and in-store Apple occasions.
“I feel they’re testing to see what sentiment is like. Apple likes to regulate the narrative. So these ‘leaks,’ they’re not taking place unintentionally,” suggests Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Technique. “Apple’s misplaced lots of people. I feel it’d truly be a web optimistic as a result of it can create a contemporary crop of those who have extra energy now than they did earlier than.”
New Names to Know
It’s at all times tough to choose up a person’s contributions at Apple, past the odd element, comparable to John Ternus himself reportedly being behind the MacBook’s TouchBar. Bertrand Nepveu labored within the Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional staff from 2017 to 2021, after Apple acquired his VR headset startup Vrvana, and now runs Montreal-based VC agency Triptyq Capital. Throughout his three and a half years, largely engaged on the Imaginative and prescient Professional’s pass-through capabilities, the staff ballooned from 300 to round 1,200. “John Ternus, although I by no means labored with him, the suggestions I obtained is that he’s an excellent product particular person,” he says, “and I feel that is what is required for the subsequent part of Apple, particularly with AI and with XR.”
With this future in thoughts, Nepveu sees the mix of Ternus-as-CEO working nicely with different personnel strikes at Apple, together with the information in March that Rockwell was taking up improvement of Siri from the pinnacle of AI, John Giannandrea. In one other main future-facing reshuffle, Giannandrea was changed this week by Amar Subramanya, who spent 16 years at Google, together with work on Gemini and DeepMind, earlier than a six-month stint at Microsoft.
“Mike Rockwell, I labored with him within the Imaginative and prescient Professional group, I feel he’s the appropriate particular person for that as a result of they [XR and AI] work in tandem,” says Nepveu. “He used to joke that Siri was crap. I preferred him as a result of he did not drink the Kool-Assist. I used to be glad after I noticed that he obtained promoted. I feel in tandem with somebody who’s extra product-focused [Ternus], it is the way in which to go for Apple.”
