Apple’s Succession Intrigue Isn’t Strange at All

Aaron Tilley and Wayne Ma, in a piece headlined “Why Silicon Valley is Buzzing About Apple CEO Succession” at the paywalled-up-the-wazoo The Information:

Prediction site Polymarket places Ternus’ odds of getting the
job at nearly 55%, ahead of other current Apple executives
such as software head Craig Federighi, Chief Operating Officer
Sabih Khan and marketing head Greg Joswiak. But some people close
to Apple don’t believe Ternus is ready to take on such a
high-profile role, and that could make a succession announcement
unlikely anytime soon, said people familiar with the company.

Nothing in the rest of the article backs up that “some people close
to Apple don’t believe Ternus is ready” claim, other than this, several paragraphs later:

And while his fans believe Ternus has the temperament to be CEO,
many of them say he isn’t a charismatic leader in the mold of a
Jobs. He has also had little involvement in the geopolitical and
government affairs issues that dominate most of Cook’s time these
days. On a recent trip to China, for example, Apple’s new COO,
Sabih Khan, accompanied Cook to some of his meetings.

No one else in the history of the industry, let alone the company, has the charisma of Steve Jobs. And while I think Polymarket has the shortlist of candidates right, I also think they have them listed in the right order. Sabih Khan probably should be considered an outside-chance maybe, but the fact that he accompanied Cook to China doesn’t me make think, for a second, that it’s in preparation to name him CEO. If Kahn were being groomed to become CEO, he’d have started appearing in keynotes already. It’s silly to slag Ternus for not having the charisma of Steve Jobs, when Ternus has been a strong presence in keynotes since 2018, and in the same paragraph suggest Khan as a better option, when Khan has never once appeared in a keynote or public appearance representing Apple.

Some former Apple executives hope a dark-horse candidate emerges.
For example, Tony Fadell, a former Apple hardware executive who
coinvented [sic] the iPod, has told associates recently that he
would be open to replacing Cook as CEO, according to people who
have heard his remarks. (Other people close to Apple consider
Fadell an unlikely candidate, in part because he was a polarizing
figure when he worked at the company. Fadell left Apple in 2010.)

The parenthetical undersells the unlikelihood of Fadell returning to Apple, ever, in any role, let alone the borderline insanity of suggesting he’d come back as Cook’s successor.

It has become one of the strangest succession spectacles in tech.
Typically, the kind of buzz that is swirling around Cook occurs
when companies are performing badly or a CEO has dropped hints
that they’re getting ready to hang up their spurs. Neither applies
in Cook’s case, though.

There’s nothing strange about it. Apple has a unique company culture, but so too do its peers, like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. And just like at those companies, it’s therefore a certainty that Cook’s replacement will come from within the company’s current ranks. Polymarket doesn’t even list anyone other than Ternus, Federighi, Joswiak, and Khan.

As for hints, there is not much need for any hint beyond the fact that Cook is now 65 years old and has been in the job since 2011. But the high-profile multi-source leak to the Financial Times is a pretty obvious fucking additional hint.

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