Kamal Ghorui
Come Sept, Apple will have a new CEO. John Ternus is a company veteran, and as a hardware man all along, he’s been associated with most Apple products, from Macs to the very chips that now power Apple devices. His elevation is notable, obviously, because Apple has been the world’s most valuable company for most of the past 16-17 years.
Even now, it’s a very close third, despite having almost no AI heft. More than that, the change at Apple matters because it proves once again, nobody is irreplaceable. Back in 2004, when Steve Jobs was recovering from cancer surgery, and current CEO Tim Cook was filling in for him, Cook had said, “Come on, replace Steve? No. He’s irreplaceable.” We’re all wiser now.
Change at Apple also underlines the importance of companies reinventing themselves. Because if they don’t, they fall off the ladder. Names like General Electric and IBM are proof.
In Apple’s case, there was the Jobs phase, when it built a reputation for innovation, attention to detail, and product design. That ethos ensured that, even 10 years after iPhone’s launch, fans would queue up overnight to buy the latest model on launch day. But great design and engineering aren’t enough to become, and remain, the top corporation. The second phase, under Cook, took care of that.
Cook’s no showman like Jobs, but he has a reputation as a supply chain genius. He took the call to shut down Apple’s costly factories, and outsource production to mostly Chinese vendors, before it was fashionable to do so. With precise demand forecasting and tight inventory management, Apple could satisfy millions of customers, while keeping its own liabilities small. This agile supply chain – together with the reputation for quality – took Apple past $1tn capitalisation in 2018. It introduced risks, no doubt, like the 2012 scandal over harsh working conditions at vendor factories, but Cook dealt with it confidently.
Cook’s made Apple a well-oiled machine, with strong sales and profits, but rigour can’t be a substitute for spark. Apple’s fallen far behind in the AI race – its Siri assistant is powered by old rival Google’s Gemini – and has been slow to introduce foldables, wearables and VR devices.
Hence, the pivot to product innovation under Ternus now. The same spirit is visible at Tesla, which is looking beyond electric cars, to robotaxis and robots. History’s witness that doing the same thing well – like Nokia and Kodak – can make you a medium-term success, but to win long-term, reinvent.
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