00:00This is what people have been asking about for quite some time. What do we need to know?
00:05Yeah, you know, Tim Cook is not ready to talk about retirement. He says that he can't live
00:09without Apple and can't imagine a time where he's not at Apple. And the good news for him
00:15and for shareholders is we probably don't have to imagine a time with Tim Cook not at Apple for at
00:21least another 10 years or so, right? Because when he steps down as CEO, he will stay involved at
00:28the company in some sort of capacity, probably executive chairman. But the wheels are in motion
00:33for Tim Cook to step down in the next, you know, half decade at the at the very latest and
00:40be
00:40replaced by John Ternus, the senior vice president of hardware engineering. He's responsible for the
00:46development of all of Apple's products. Obviously, those generate 80 percent or so of Apple's revenue.
00:52He's worked at Apple for about half his life, just under 25 years. He understands the culture.
00:57This is someone who would be more product focused than Tim Cook, but in many ways operates like Cook
01:04and would surprisingly be a continuity choice. Mark, what steered you to really feel that he is
01:10the heir apparent? What's been happening underneath the hood of Apple that makes you think this is the
01:14guy? There's a lot going on. Internally, there's been a very steady expansion of his responsibilities.
01:21He's received oversight a couple of years ago of Apple's Vision Products Group, which is responsible for
01:27the in-development smart glasses, which are a big upcoming product launch for Apple. He's taken over
01:32the robotics teams. At the end of last year, he took oversight of Apple's design teams, so software
01:39design and hardware design. That's a very critical role in the company. That's something that only,
01:45you know, people like Tim Cook, Johnny Ives, Steve Jobs, people of that ilk have overseen in the past.
01:51He's 15 years younger than Cook. He's about 10 years younger than any other option for Apple's
01:57next CEO on the company's executive team. Apple has been putting him front and center in product
02:02announcements. He introduced the MacBook Neo earlier this month, which is obviously a big business lever
02:08for Apple, for the Mac specifically. The day after the introduction of that computer, he was the one who
02:14went on Good Morning America to talk about it. These are traditionally things that the CEO, Tim Cook,
02:18has done for years for major new products, but now it's Ternus doing it.
02:23Mark, very, very quickly, where does Apple's strategy with AI, generative AI and voice-based AI
02:29fit in with this story?
02:31You know, the big question is if Apple is going to try to evolve into an AI company or a
02:36software
02:36and services company. If that's the case, Ternus is probably not the right pick, but I do believe
02:41they are going to be a hardware company at heart for the foreseeable future, which makes Ternus
02:46front and center of the action.
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