Who is John Ternus, the incoming CEO of Apple?

After 15 years, Tim Cook will hand over to John Ternus, the company’s senior vice president of hardware engineering. From September 1, Ternus will lead one of the most important companies in the world, but if you are not a devoted Apple fan, you probably have never heard of this man, who has remained invisible until now.

How long did John Ternus work at Apple?

Ternus has worked at Apple for almost half of his life – now 51 years old, he has been with the company for 25 years.

He joined Apple’s product design team in 2001 as only his second job out of college (the first was at a small virtual reality maker called Virtual Research Systems). In 2013, Ternus was VP of hardware engineering, and was promoted to SVP in 2021. Ternus — 15 years younger than Cook — was among the youngest Apple executives rumored to be a possible successor, meaning Apple may be looking for someone to lead the company long-term. After all, Apple has only had two CEOs this millennium, so it seems that leadership continuity is important to the company.

Ternus reports to Cook, whom he considers a mentor, and leads all hardware engineering at Apple. That’s a big deal for a company known for ubiquitous hardware like the iPhone and MacBook.

In his 2024 commencement speech at his engineering school at the University of Pennsylvania, Ternus reflected on the lessons he learned at Apple, which might tell us a little about his character – or at least a clean version of it.

“Always think you’re as smart as everyone else in the room, but never think you know as much as they do,” Ternus said in a speech. “In this sense, you will gain the confidence you need to move forward, but most importantly, the humility to ask questions.”

In a tech ecosystem full of self-centered people, it’s refreshing to hear Ternus utter the word “humility.” Even better, he doesn’t seem to have an X account.

What projects did John Ternus lead at Apple?

Ternus’ first project at Apple involved examining components of the Apple Cinema Display, the first desktop monitor.

“Sometime in my first year, I found myself in a grocery store, I was far from home. It was past midnight, I was using a magnifying glass to count the number of grooves in the screw head. […] and I was against the supplier because these parts have 35 grooves. They should have had 25,” recalled Ternus in his first speech.” “I vividly remember stepping back for a minute and thinking, ‘What am I doing? Is this natural?'”

As Ternus climbed the corporate ladder, his responsibilities grew. He may not spend a lot of time analyzing screws, but he still seems to take pride in fixing the small details. In a recent interview, when Ternus was asked about his favorite memory of Steve Jobs, he talked about the former Apple founder’s attention to art.

“[Jobs] it moved the furniture, the chest of drawers, and it moved it away from the wall and it looked behind it and it just reflected, you know, that the carpenter who had done it had done it well,” said Ternus. And I think about that all the time because I think that’s a good example of what we’re doing here.”

From there, he went on to lead hardware development behind products across the Apple ecosystem, overseeing launches such as AirPods, Apple Watch, and Vision Pro. He also contributed to major technological developments at Apple, such as Apple’s transition from Intel chips to its proprietary Apple silicon.

Recently, Ternus was involved in the production of the MacBook Neo, Apple’s new, more affordable laptop model that cuts costs with some smart trade-offs in hardware design, such as using an iPhone chip to power the device.

“We never want to ship junk. We want to ship great products with the Apple experience, that Apple quality. To do that with Neo required building something completely new from the ground up. […] we’re using two technologies that we’ve been developing like Apple silicon, but also the kind of technology that we’ve developed over many, many years building Macs, and building phones, and building iPads, and all these things,” Ternus told Tom’s Guide.

As CEO, Ternus will have to guide Apple through its challenge to participate in the AI ​​race and figure out what to do with the underlying technology behind the Vision Pro.

What else do we know about John Ternus?

Ternus was on the swim team at Penn. For his senior project, he built a feeding arm for people with quadriplegia who could not control it by moving their head.

According to public records of political donations, Ternus gave $2,900 to Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in 2021.

Otherwise, Ternus kept a relatively low profile.