Ternus in a Teacup: Talking About Apple's CEO Talking About Apple

Believe it or not, I probably spent more time gauging reaction to the performance of new Apple CEO John Ternus the day after Apple's Q4FY26 earnings call than I did on financial analyst reaction. To be clear, it wasn't gauging his performance as CEO. It was gauging his performance on the call. That is because we live in - quite possibly - the dumbest timeline.

“Apple CEO John Ternus criticized for ‘scripted’ approach to first earnings call,” says a headline from 9to5Mac. 9to5Mac wasn’t criticizing Ternus. They were talking about the likes of Bloomberg and Fortune - publications that spilled months of digital ink over how great it is that Apple has a product guy as CEO now, only to pounce the first time they hear anything that might be big enough to pounce on.

Bloomberg’s Dave Lee:

Apple investors and fans hoping to get an insight into the philosophy of new Chief Executive Officer John Ternus on Monday were left sorely disappointed. The 51-year-old’s first earnings call was a timid affair, with Ternus taking cover behind a carefully written script as analysts peppered him with questions.

Lee went on to say:

…Monday night was a chance to counteract the gloom and doom by instilling in Wall Street the fundamentals of the Ternus Doctrine — what he sees Apple becoming under his tenure, the “product guy” taking the company to a new era of innovation. Instead, he spoke like a man glancing at the clock and wishing the minutes away.

Fortune’s Sebastian Herrera:

Ternus fielded some questions but also delegated answers to Chief Financial Officer Kevan Parekh and Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan, who Apple said would participate in earnings calls moving forward, something the company hasn’t done for years. Ternus projected confidence on the call, but he appeared to stick mostly to scripted marketing points.

For its part, 9to5Mac thinks it’ll take time for Ternus to get comfortable on the calls. That said, “he took a measured but optimistic approach” in the site’s estimation.

Turning to another Apple news site, AppleInsider seemed pretty livid over the treatment Ternus got from Bloomberg and its ilk. However, it wasn’t so much a defense of Ternus as it was Fortune and the others either not understanding or pretending to not understand how these calls work. The top half is always scripted. You’ve heard me refer to it as “prepared remarks.” The thing is, they have prepared remarks for the second half as well. While it’s probably not right to say “Ternus [took] cover behind a carefully written script as analysts peppered him with questions,” he probably did have his prepared remarks or pull quotes from his prepared remarks right there in front of him to refer to during the Q&A.

For people angry or indignant (feigned or otherwise) over Ternus reading from a script - so did Tim Cook. He just wasn’t as good at it as Ternus, which made it seem more natural.

So let’s do the call as media critique.

Privately, by which I mean when I start ranting to a friend of mine or my special lady friend, this is actually something I’ve worried or wondered about. People who’d been listening to Apple’s earnings calls knew who Tim Cook was long before he became CEO. He used to run the calls with CFO Peter Oppenheimer while Steve Jobs was still CEO. Here’s the thing though - in hearing those calls, we got to know a bit about Tim Cook. He was smart, he was methodical, and - perhaps most telling - he was not polished. Ternus is so polished that, so far, we’ve not gotten to know him at all.

I did comment yesterday on “Mac OS Ken” that his prepared remarks sounded pre-recorded. That was the audio guy in me. The mic sounded different. The cadence sounded different. I don’t know whether Tim Cook was doing a live read on each call, but it always sounded like he was because, again - Tim Cook was not polished. Not as an orator, anyway.

As far as getting to know Ternus, we really haven’t had time. And in a way, who cares? Apple is so big and on such a trajectory, he almost can’t mess it up anytime soon - not without going literally insane. Even if he wanted to turn this ship (and I seriously doubt that he does), turning a ship takes time, and while the seas may be choppy, we don’t seem to be in iceberg territory.

As far as having support on the call, Fortune’s Herrera points out that Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan will be on the call from now on. He says that’s “something the company hasn’t done for years,” except sure they have. Tim Cook ran most of Apple’s earnings calls before becoming CEO when he was (wait for it) Chief Operating Officer. While Jeff Williams eventually became Apple’s COO, Tim Cook had the experience - both as Chief Operating Officer and on the call. So on the call you had the Cook as CEO, Cooks as somebody well versed in operations (if not the titular head of it), and the financial guy, whoever that happened to be at the time. Three for the price of two.

I do have one tip for Mr. Ternus - almost a request, really. Something that Tim Cook used to do on the Q&A portion of every call was respond first by saying, “this is Tim,” because he knew that people couldn’t see him on a freakin’ phone call. I always thought it was kind of funny because on no planet was anyone who could hear going to confuse the voice of Tim Cook with that of Peter Oppenheimer, Luca Maestri, or Kevan Parekh. As a listener to this week’s call, it would be really great if John and Kevan would do that because half the time, I wasn’t sure who was talking. Funny enough, the only person on the call who did do that this week was Sabih Khan. Khan has an accent, not as thick as Luca Maestri’s, but definitely there. So - not unlike Tim Cook saying “this is Tim,” the only guy on the call whose identity is obvious just by hearing him was also the only one helpful enough to identify himself more often than not.

Summing all of that up - I was not one of the people sure excited that Ternus was named CEO because we don’t really know him. That’s gonna take time. At the same time, I’m not gonna plotz because the call sounds different. We don’t really know him. That’s gonna take time.