John Ternus has been Apple’s CEO for only a month, but he’s already spending far more time in the company’s design studio than Tim Cook did.
Ternus reportedly visits Apple’s industrial design and human interface teams several times a week, sometimes multiple times in a single day. Cook typically visited the studio about once a month and would spend roughly an hour there at most.
It’s an unusually stark difference in how the two CEOs spend their time, and an early indication that product design will occupy more of Ternus’s attention at the top of Apple.
Ternus is staying close to product development
Their different routines reflect very different backgrounds.
Cook came up through operations and supply chain, eventually building the manufacturing and logistics system that became central to Apple’s enormous growth.
Ternus spent his career much closer to the products themselves, joining Apple in 2001 and eventually leading hardware engineering.
His previous role already brought him into regular contact with Apple’s design organization, where hardware engineers work alongside industrial and interface designers to turn concepts into products that can actually be manufactured. His presence there has reportedly increased considerably since becoming CEO.
Ternus is also leaving more of Apple’s financial and operational responsibilities with the executives already running those organizations.
CFO Kevan Parekh is handling much of the financial oversight, while operations chief Sabih Khan remains responsible for the supply chain.
That division gives Ternus considerably more room to remain involved in engineering and design while running the company.
Apple’s CEO is back in the design studio
A CEO spending more time with designers doesn’t mean Apple’s products will suddenly change direction.
Much of what Apple will release over the next several years was already in development before Ternus took over, and the company still has large engineering and design organizations making those decisions.
His schedule does reveal where he wants to spend his attention.
Visiting the design studio several times a week puts Apple’s CEO much closer to the discussions and tradeoffs that shape future hardware and software.
For a company whose reputation was built largely on the products it puts in people’s hands, that’s a meaningful change from how Apple was managed under Cook.
The first products that genuinely bear Ternus’s fingerprints as CEO are still years away, but he’s already making himself a much more regular presence in the rooms where they’ll be designed.
