Apple's Core Dilemma: Should a New CEO Preserve or Evolve?

0:00Welcome to We Fixed It. You're welcome. The show where we take over companies, you come along for the ride. We try to put them back better than we found them. Apple has a brand new CEO. With Tim Cook moving to executive chairman, long time hardware achieved, John Ternis is taking over. The question on everyone's minds is whether Ternis could fill Tim Cook's shoes. Here's another question. Should he even try? Because the quote an old ad campaign, Apple likes to think different. So no doubt the company's looking for fresh ideas. But have a newly appointed CEO like Ternis changes too much too fast, that's a problem. If he doesn't make any changes at all and tries to preserve the way things were, that's also a problem. And this is not any old company. This is Apple. So how can a hand pick successor hold on to everything that made this company great and also move the company forward? This is a moment where the right move could signal progress, confidence and growth. The wrong move could be disastrous. That's what we're here to

1:01fix. And lucky for us, our guest knows a finger too about this situation. You won't be hearing from Chino today. She's a little under the weather. So please join Melissa and me in welcoming Chris Dever. Chris worked in leadership development at Apple during a highly successful period even by Apple standards. Even more relevant, he worked extensively with John Ternis for more than a decade to prepare him for the CEO role. Since 2012, 23 Chris has been co-founder and principal of Brave Core, where he works with Fortune 500 leadership teams on performance and growth. He's also co-author of the book Brave Together, which was selected by Malcolm Gladwell's next big idea club. So I'm guessing he knows his stuff. Welcome Chris. What else would you like to share? Great. Thank you, and great to be here with you, Melissa as well. And everybody's listening. Just excited before the conversation and looking forward to diving in. Nice. Thank you, Chris. We're very, glad you're here. We've been wanting to talk about Apple for a good while from a leadership perspective, so we can't wait to hear what you have to say. Before we jump into it, let's rewind

2:06a bit. So yes, Apple has a new CEO, but that has happened before. A lot of us associate Apple interchangeably with Steve Jobs, but Steve Jobs actually left in 1985 and didn't come back until 1997. But he came back on fire. He took a company that was operating at a loss into a profit by the next year. After Jobs took over, the product line was simplified and beautified, the ad campaigns were clever and undeniable, and the company culture was solidified. Apple could not be stopped. Then of course, the baton passed from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook in 2011. That could have been catastrophic, given the circumstances, but actually the transition went well. Cook had already spent 13 years at Apple and did not try to become Steve Jobs 2.0. Instead, he scaled the company and proved the technology, strategically introduced new products and built a much larger global operation. By 2025, Apple's revenue was almost four times higher than it was in 2011. Go Tim Cook. So that all sounds great. As a leader, Tim Cook played it a little safer, was more diplomatic, and didn't take the big swings that Steve Jobs did. And there were

3:09missteps too. Apple canceled its automotive project, that was expensive, delayed major Syrian improvements, and was accused of price gouging. But ultimately, a new leader came in, moved the company forward, drove profits, and pretty much nailed it. Now we're in the exact same situation. A new leader promoted from within with everyone waiting to see what will happen. Was the handoff to Tim Cook a fluke or can magic happen again? John Ternis is not Tim Cook. He's not Steve Jobs. So what is a new leader supposed to do in this situation? And it's a fair question that a lot, it's not a lot of people's minds. A fact that it calls from reporters, Wall Street Journal, and everybody's curious, how is it going to play out? And I think they were very curious in those other circumstances when Steve came back, and when Tim took over the reins certainly. That was a big moment. But I think there's also a deeper question to about why would Steve choose

4:09somebody who's very different than him in terms of personality? Steve being a more aggressive aggregator, integrator of stuff, and having direction in meetings and showing up with a lot of clarity about their focus of the company. Tim being more of a stepping back, zooming out, kind of, kind of MBA, seeing the big picture, and then a deep operator. Yeah, Chris, I think I like what you're saying about the right leader at the right time, because like you said, even after a consensus builder like Tim Cook, I don't know that there'd be room for someone like with a singular vision like Steve Jobs. I mean, they'd have to be incredibly dynamic to kind of steamroll, to get their way. But it's Apple has become more of a, you know, from everything I know more of a committee driven type of company. There's more peacekeeping and that's all

5:12thanks to Tim Cook. So after those two big imprints, I don't know that a Steve Jobs could come in and just say, my way or get out. Yeah, no, there's a funny hypothetical here too that actually was a plausible scenario at one point when Apple was in the automotive game. They looked at, and Tesla was struggling financially. There was real conversations about acquiring Tesla. And the contingency for Elon was he would have to be the CEO of all of Apple. And of course Tim wouldn't have that, right? Yeah. Well, and I think that this is like a great story when we talk about CEOs in transition. Right. And so I think Chris, you know, this very specifically about Apple, like the spotlight is on there. But this is not a story that is any different than has happened at other large corporations and other large brands, right? Where, you know, what happens operationally during that CEO transition? How do you make it work? And you are very in touch with Tim as well as John

6:20Ternis. And so the fact of the matter is that to have that be a successful transition is really going to be important and that there is a smooth handoff. And it's more than just, you know, the raw raw press release. And, you know, that you're honoring, I think what you're saying is not just Steve Jobs, it's honoring that culture that Apple has built. That is what it's known for. It's known for innovation. It's known for pushing the limits. And it's known for beautiful products, right? That deliver on that on those services. So, you know, Apple really has given itself some runway here by having Cook stay on throughout the summer. And then also on the board. But I think that we've seen those stories like that where it actually hasn't worked out well. Chris, what would your advice be to him as he's coming in to kind of build that clarity there so that that transition goes smoothly as well as, you know, honoring Tim Cook? Yeah, I think first of all

7:23to your point, like these transitions are very hard. And I think sometimes like with acquisitions as another example, people tend to underestimate how difficult it is. And in the underestimation, you also have sometimes egos at play, right? Where there's kind of a reluctance to let be letting go. And some of that is like, hey, these are like dream team people. It's like Michael Jordan retiring, but actually retiring, right? And not going to the Wizards and doing whatever he did there. And no, no, no, you know, just shade on Michael Jordan. He's the greatest ever played. But, you know, there's a time and a place to the season to make that transition. It's to be able to jedi fade and drop the baton officially. I don't think Tim's going to have a problem with that. Frankly, you know, I'm pretty close to the pulse with Tim. Actually, we put out a newsletter every week and he's the first one to read our newsletter. And he and we did great work together at Apple in the main thrust of that was, hey, we're great at thinking different, right? We're great at innovation.

8:24That's the heartbeat. Steve established it. And then with Tim, our work was taking it to the next level, which we called different together. And it was shifting to a culture that is innovative, but is also extremely collaborative, horizontally. And this was really important because you had teams that had grown from, you know, one or 10 people to a hundred or a thousand. Right. And you have a culture of secrecy layered in. I'm talking like more, more secrecy than the government or the FBI or CIA and about products. And there's a reason for it because you want the surprise and delight at the end of the tunnel, right? Something special that emerges. Now, somebody like John, first of all, handpicked because you're not going to bring somebody in the outside of the culture of Apple that antibodies would come out. It wouldn't work at all. They wouldn't have the DNA. And you know, that gets to the point about the Elon thing we were talking about earlier. But I also think that that personality wouldn't work out. You know, to Aaron's point earlier,

9:26having somebody that understands the context, that they're whatever they say is going to be scrutinized. It's a global, you know, in fact, height and a heightened sense than ever. I mean, Apple, it gets all that attention, right? Like, there's a lot of people looking at what's their next move. I talked extensively with Angela Aaron's about this too. And you know, she had transitioned out as you know, the head of retail a few years ago and did a phenomenal job, right? Watching like 500 stores. But I guess to get to the heart of your question is, how does this transition, how do we ensure that it works properly? With the insular nature of it and the promoting from within and the really nurturing over decade plus, it has the feel of a family business, you know? It makes you're like a family furniture store where the stakes are just for the family are very high, but the global stakes are a lot lower. It still has that same kind of like push and pull dynamic of with, especially with Tim Cook's, you know, staying on and having a role. And however involved he

10:28chooses to be or will be in the next phase. But you have, Tim Cook didn't have the Steve Jobs after a certain point. Steve Jobs wasn't around to make to check with or make decisions or his influence. So, but Turner's has Tim Cook around. I think the other DNA that you know, Steve to his credit, he saw this in contrast, even though he had a ton of respect for Disney and Walt in particular, Walt Disney. The question of like that people were left with in that lost decade after Walt died, right? It was like, what would Walt do? And trust me, that's still lingers on sometimes, right? The work that I did at Disney too, we did there was as we acquired Pixar, was infusing this new thinking towards, hey, you can rethink this, right? You can reimagine your approach to how you do it. And you know, Kudos to Bob Iger, I think he did a fair amount with a lot of the acquisitions and direction for the company. There are fair questions to be asked about,

11:28like, why is their stock price the same? It's been for like 10 years after. And I think that has to do with some of what we're talking about. Succession was very messy, right? Bob Chapich, that was kind of messy. There was another CFO, Tom Stags before that. And I think Josh Demaro is the right person now. I think they landed on it. And you know, why was it so messy there? Probably a combination of forces. I think Bob Iger was such a definitive leader. He'd made such great decisions related to working with Steve on some of those, frankly, Marvel, Lucas, etc. Pixar foremost. But and those re-infused the Disney, the heartbeat of what Disney is, right? Animation, etc. So, like, I think there's a way that going back to Apple, they're so intentional that, I mean, again, we were talking about this 10 years ago and just continuing to build that capability in John, both on the product side as he took on more going from MacBook to iPad to iPhones, more

12:33involvement in that. And then taking on that SVP role, which Dan Ritchie was before him, you know, we could already see the potential and a lot of this work about working different together and being a deep collaborator, he'd already been embracing with his team. Well, I love what you've said about John being, or not just John, but like Apple having that collaborative culture, you know, and we all know that, you know, each of these companies that we've been talking about have Uber-talented people, very smart, very, you know, very, you know, innovative. And so what's great about this is that coming, you know, John's challenge is that he has spent most of his career focused on the hardware engineering. And this is the challenge of any CEO coming into a company is that if they're operationally really good at one thing, that's great. But being a CEO is being able to have, you know, the understanding of CX, retail, support, marketing, the full customer journey, just what you said, what's out there in the future,

13:38all of the innovation labs, not just owning the product coming out of their specific space. And I think that you brought up a cautionary tale there with Disney where, you know, Chapeck was a strong operational leader, but maybe struggled with the whole enterprise, and that's where the fit was off. And that stakeholder management with the creative talent and all the things that were going on. And, you know, being a CEO, you're in a very political position, you have sensitive issues, you need to be able to, you know, make decisions and really, you know, respond to the shareholders and your customers and the board. And I don't, you know, I think what you've said is that that's not going to be Ternis's issue, right? I mean, it's really about him being able to have the trust. And because he's been there and knows the people, right, and knows the leaders to have those strong, I don't even know if second-in-command is the right way

14:38to say it, but have the right generals in place to really root the entirety of what that Apple experience is all about. And being very explicit publicly that this is what we are and who we are. And it's not, you know, and I feel like even Tim did this, it wasn't about Tim, it wasn't about Steve, right? You know, well, maybe it was about Steve, but, you know, I think that that's one of the things that really is rooted in that culture beyond. And I really, you know, appreciate your perspective because I do think, you know, there have been cautionary tales where CEOs haven't been able to kind of get over that hump of being embracing that collaborative nature and the culture of the entire enterprise. Yeah, and it's if you've ever worked for any company anywhere, you know, there's the process that's supposed to happen and then there's what everyone actually does. The problem is most leaders can't see that gap, which makes it pretty hard to know it's actually worth fixing. That's why I like scribe optimized, which automatically discovers workflows across your

15:41approved business applications. No interviews, no workshops, just how work actually happens. It's live dashboard gives you a clear view of how work gets done across all your teams. So you can see which tools are being used, where time is being spent, and where the biggest inefficiencies are hiding. And it doesn't just point those out. It explains why they're happening and recommends ways to fix them with estimated time savings built in. That's way more useful than just knowing where the problems are. What I also like is that this is about leadership visibility, not employee monitoring. In fact, user level data is anonymized by default and sensitive information is automatically redacted and none of it ever leaves your firewall. So you're getting true operational insights without compromising anyone's privacy. To see scribe optimize in action like I did, had described.how slash fixed it and mentioned fixed it for a 30 day risk free trial. That's scribe.how slash f i x ed it's absolutely true. And I think if you looked at it just on paper, it would it could be a

16:43risk in the sense for anybody in any function at Apple. Like there's a lot of people looked at right, dear, Dress, she runs operations and HR Jeff Williams before he left right his head of operations. There was Eddie talk about Eddie Q and they all have the part of like a heavy vertical right that they're functionally expert at and deep. And that's also a difference about Apple is there are general managers for the most part. There's a few exceptions that are very rare at Apple for certain reasons. But for the most part, you have a John who yeah, he's he's he's he's moved up the vertical in terms of hardware. And that's been his point his point of view. The thing he's expected to what they call it Apple the category one. Their category one is what you're responsible for. But the beauty of it is is they also have a premise for trusting other people's category one. Right. So love that. That's important because if a general manager type and maybe they're a CFO but they've been in that general manager mindset and they promote to CEO, but they have an assumption

17:47that they should have their hands and everything. And that's a problem, right. That's a problem. It was already a problem, but it's a problem, especially in today's world and the future. Because people want to feel like they have autonomy and they were hired for a reason. I mean, we're talking about let's go to back to Disney. You're talking about Kevin Feige who runs Marvel. You're talking about Pete Doctor who runs Pixar. They don't want to be told like crazy stuff about how to position their content or you know, this kind of thing. And yet oftentimes there's a lot of pressure on a leader like a Bob Chapic to be doing that. And even though they have to exercise a significant amount of restraint to not do that, right. To be intentional about empowering their people. And I think that's the beauty also of the design of Apple granted. I think with Tim, you're able to have that operations focus a much broader view. But the same thing was true. He was able to say, okay, Angela, I'm hiring you for this reason. You run retail. And by the way,

18:48I'm going to pay you more than I get paid and just do a great job. Like do phenomenal at it. I'm going to trust that however you design those retail spaces, it's the right thing. It's going to be the digital Disneyland. It needs to be. And then it was. And then you take the hardware space. Tim was doing the same thing. Some people criticize them for this. They're like, oh, he didn't have enough product vision. Like I don't think that was required for that time period. I think we're what the market and clearly a market has proved this. The most valuable company in the world today. It's like, there's a reason. And I think that's an argument for as Mary Park or Fallet would say, allowing the team with the leader, but it starts to become its own leader, right. And if the culture can be the leader together, it's the most powerful thing. And John understands that and he has a product vision. So I think I think the right ingredients are in place. There's still going to be dynamics that will be challenging because he'll get, I mean, I just saw a headline. You know, he's getting pulled into, you know, programming for Apple TV plus.

19:49It's like, what's his take? Well, my guess is knowing John, he's going to sit at the table with those leaders and and be co creative. Well, you brought something up. So I want to ask you about as somebody who's kind of in the know, because I feel like the perception problem is real. It's not just a vibe. So when a company like Apple, whose hallmark is innovation, goes through the sort of leadership transition. How do they say true to the brand instead of falling into like a little bit of a ho hum mode, so to speak? And then what's the responsibility of Tim, who's leaving, and John who's coming in and the company overall? Because there has been some backwoods talk about what's going on with Apple's AI pace and what happened with Siri and what's going on? And you just brought up the AR stuff that seems like they're getting behind. And what is there take,

20:54you know, sitting at the table? Are they like, we're not worried about that? Because they know what the double, double, double, double secrets are. I mean, this is just kind of the tale of two cities, right? Like our conversation externally will be like this, right? And we're we're, we're curious about what are the ends of next? And you know, do you feel that pressure? Honestly, when you sit in those conversations with the senior leaders, and it's not a, it's not an ignorance of what exists in the in the marketplace of thought, right? Or the zeitgeist, but they don't really care for the most part of what the market's saying or the street, even though they, but they trust that if we're doing the right thing, the right things will emerge. And on this topic, I mean, you're not wrong about like, I think AI is a challenge. There's reasons for that because again, on a principle, Apple has chosen the principle of privacy foremost above anything. I mean, Tim was willing to go to jail for this when the FBI situation came up, right? The White House was after him about it. But he

21:55knew if we give up a back door for one person, it's for everybody. We lose privacy. Now, the trade off there is if you have privacy in the depth that Apple has that is also a preserver of its ecosystem because people trust Apple. I mean, it's a, it's a vertical system. It's a closed system. It's their moat. Yeah. But if you didn't have, if, so if you didn't have that, be a serious problem. But on the flip side, that doesn't, that's not, it's not a good argument for creating a holistic AI solution because AI relies on data that it pulls from everywhere. This is why Google has positioned Gemini. It's been a success. And I'd say the other AI's is they're, they're scraping from everywhere. And so I think, you know, Apple's looking at a contingency plan for partnership with Google on some of this. I think that's a good one. And then just having kind of an open forum to have, you know, some of those AI apps plugged into their, their services. It doesn't answer the question about, you know, series effectiveness. And I think that's fair. It's like they got to

22:58raise that game. But it does present challenges because those are kind of two conflicting principles, privacy and the kind of AI that that we would describe as consumers that we understand to this point, right? That's how I would say because the kind of AI that we use. And by the way, it's the same AI that it's not a clear business model. Mark and Driesen, who's one of the most invested in open AI has said himself, it's like rice, right? They're not making a lot of money. They're actually burning $4 billion a month open AI without a clear view. You know, on the horizon of how this is going to turn into actual cash. So I think there's open questions about, you know, and I'm not criticizing because I think to your what you're saying is they have to solve for AI in their ecosystem. How it exists as a layer that helps, you know, propel the kind of consumer experience with their products. It's the right one. And I think that's also different than like, hey, they got to be in this like, you know, the AI sticker slapping thing of like, hey, it's got to be AI because there's not money in AI right now. It's just be real, right? I think it's there's not.

24:01Unless you're like claw or anthropic and you're starting to see some things, but even then, I think the multiples are a little crazy. Maybe, you know, and I know how analogous it is to dot com. But I think there's going to be some that start to emerge as actual players that have the kind of not just investment, but real world business model economics that are true ROI. But for now, it's like, that's still an open question. I think Apple would probably say or John and some of the people I know there, in addition to him is like, or Tim himself, we're being a strategic as we need to. I mean, they always have this principle of like, we don't care about being the first, care about being the best. Yeah, and I love what you said too, because I think you actually, you keep kind of centering around this core around their principles, the culture that they have a very, very specific vision of what they're what their goals are. And so when you said that about security, I thought that was really key because right now everything is out there. When and

25:05Claude just had this announced this last week that there's questions because now personal chats are actually showing up your, you know, your personal chats are showing up in other people's, you know, when they're when they're doing a prompt or something like that. So again, I love that you know who you are, right? Like that's what you're kind of basically your big if you just want to say it down to, you know, Rastax, you're saying they know who they are. They're trying to stay true and authentic to who they are. And they will come to the table with the best options when they want to. And so the noise about this perception that they're, you know, not, you know, not in the AI race or whatever, whatever is not necessarily that they're not aware. It's they're going at their own pace and they're working through those things in the way that they feel is most true to Apple as, you know, and I appreciate that as an Apple user, you know, is that I

26:11don't want everything out there. Right? Yeah. And that's a problem. Now we have AI slop. I mean, Aaron knows we've talked to so many people on this podcast about just in different industries. Everybody is trying to say that they use AI and for what, you know, to make sandwiches, I don't know, whatever. But like it is true. Like if you say you use AI, it seems to make you feel like you're one step ahead of your competitor, but you're really not, right? And yeah. And I think that we're going to, you know, AI in general, there's a challenge there. And I love that Apple has continually been challenged and they know what has worked very successfully. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think you're nailing it, right? Because as human beings, especially in the technological revolution, we've experienced every day is like there's and a lot of, I'd say, cultural just standard of living going through the roof is like people are like more, more, more, more, more, right? But are we certain

27:14that more and more and more is best, right? And you're right. I think I hadn't thought about it that way, but I think when you look at like Apple, I like to think about cultures as a person, right? As people. So if it were a person, like take Disney, for example, it's kind of like a grandfatherly figure, very nostalgic, right? And then it kind of had this infusion of being more young and feeling young with like Pixar. And maybe that's just some great medicine that it's taking or lifestyle change, which is great for the culture and with Marvel, Lucas, etc. But like Apple, I'm like, you know, it's maybe, yeah, it's mature adult. It's got some kids. It's, you know, it's not like a startup that's just trying to figure itself out, try to learn what major wants to do in college. It knows. And it as a culture trusts intuitively in that original voice. And that's unique in today's world. Like, I'm not, hey, let's, okay, let's just put it out there. I'm on the table. I mean, take meta, for example, Zuckerberg to me is probably indicative of, well, I would say one of the most willing to pivot and, you know, masquerade is whatever he needs to

28:19be, wherever the market's going. And I don't know him personally, but I would say like, that's problematic, right? It's problematic in the ways we're talking about. And not to mention the hit they just took in, you know, financially, but that's not the point. Well, it is the point because it validates some of it. But I think, you know, you look at like, he did create a platform that, you know, a lot of people have used Facebook. And it's, I think, become irrelevant a lot of people's lives over the years. But you're like, he's acquired a lot of other things. And, you know, what's the end game? What is a meta? What is a Facebook? Right? What does that mean? Yeah, when M and M and M became meta, we were all expecting, you know, that global transformation that we're entering this next phase of something. And that's just meta, you know, but I do like, I like the analogy that you're saying earlier, Chris about Pixar, you know, with the acquisition because Pixar, the expectations were very high. You know, you've got something to prove now. What do we have on our hands? We see what you could do. What can you do now with our backing? And I think we're at kind of

29:20a similar situation where it, but also Apple's, Apple's on a relative high. So there's, but there is that prove it through it to us again. And you mentioned AR, yeah, AR. If that was the first big announcement to come out, I don't know if that would do it, you know, because Apple does have a watching white strategy. They're very good at that. This would be nothing new if they were going to make some major announcement about AI or AR. But AR is relatively accessible. It's not Apple, you know, to the degree that Apple could do it. But I could buy a pair of AR glasses for $150. And I not, you know, like consumers are pretty apathetic about it. So if Apple were, you know, if the first turn to say first big announcement was, we've got this new AR thing you haven't seen yet, met a concracket to the degree that they thought they could others couldn't do it. The technology is cheap and available, but now you can pay a premium for Apple's version. I don't know if that would be that what people would applaud as the first. If you've ever worked for any company anywhere,

30:20you know, there's the process that's supposed to happen. And then there's whatever one actually does. The problem is most leaders can't see that gap, which makes it pretty hard to know it's actually worth fixing. That's why I like scribe optimized, which automatically discovers workflows across your approved business applications. No interviews, no workshops, just how work actually happens. It's live dashboard gives you a clear view of how work gets done across all your teams. So you can see which tools are being used, where time is being spent, and where the biggest inefficiencies are hiding. And it doesn't just point those out. It explains why they're happening, and recommends ways to fix them with estimated time savings built in. That's way more useful than just knowing where the problems are. What I also like is that this is about leadership visibility, not employee monitoring. In fact, user level data is anonymized by default, and sensitive information is automatically redacted. And none of it ever leaves your firewall. So you're getting true operational insights without compromising anyone's privacy. To see scribe optimized in action like I did, had described.how slash

31:22fixed it and mentioned fixed it for a 30 day risk free trial. That's scribe.how slash fixidit. First move. I think it's fair. I mean, to what extent would something like that show up? I mean, the other challenges is the shadow of iPhone is so huge, right? Yeah. A $200 billion a year business plus, you know, and it continues to be successful, right? And then, and so, you know, iterating better and more, you know, I've worked with those camera teams, all those technology teams, and they just continue to create just incredible stuff. And yeah, has it become a baseline to our lives? Yes. But who among us is not still buying iPhones when, you know, when you need to? Right. Yeah. And prove me wrong. I was going to sit, prove me wrong where they are. I was wrong about the iPhone. I thought, why would you want something with a fraction of the capacity of an iPod? And you already have a phone. You know, what do you need this hybrid for? I would frame it this way. If like, I wouldn't say,

32:26hey, this is going to be the next iPhone is the iPhone, right? There's only one iPhone. But could it be like watch became a $10 billion business? AirPods became a $24 to $30 billion business, right? What's the cap or what's the limit? What are the limits of that? I don't know. But what I do know is personally, right? Intuitively, we experience this. I mean, these are, it's like an extension of you, right? You experience these products. And if I put on a set of glasses, and I wear glasses, by the way, and if there is integration with actual, you know, prescription, that's a whole other thing. But if you have just the AR experience that has a depth that's different first, and maybe it mirrors some of what we tested. If you've tested a Vision Pro, it's actually pretty amazing some of the video and some of the things. It's just they couldn't get the battery is so heavy, you have to do a lot of things to make that work. But, you know, on par with, you know, say like the the meta glasses, which have tried to have some kind of cool factor. And I think they've achieved some of that. Like it's had some success, you know, they partnering with Ray Ban, you know,

33:27more success than the metaverse, let's say. But I'd say, hey, if you have a lifestyle product that looks cool, because it will, because the design teams at Apple make stuff that's cool. You know, and what are the limits of that? If it turns into a 50 billion or a 100 billion dollar company, but that's a that's like a Fortune 50 company, right? Uh, in and of itself, right? So if the argument is, is it going, is it going to be bigger than iPhone? I don't think so. But is it going to be significant? Yes. How significant? We'll see, you know? Well, and I think that you've both brought this up, and this is what I was going to ask you about Aryan from a branding perspective is I just feel like the iPhone, the iPod, all were answers to something, right? For the consumer. I don't know what, what is the answer for the glasses? Like, right, I don't think they've done a good job. And I think this is where Apple has done a very good job of selling to you why you should have an iPod and

34:34all your music should be on here. And you can and you can go wherever you want and you can take your music library. And, you know, I, you know, I love that, right? You know, and it was a great, that, you know, and that meant something to me, right? Personally, that meant something to me. But like, I also think that that's the reason why when it's the right time for Apple to, you know, share their version of the glasses, they're going to have a deeper story and connection to the consumer about why you want these. It's not, there is the cool factor. Don't get me wrong. I'd love, you know, like, but like, I still, like, you know, even the ads that Meta has, you've got, you know, football players wearing him, like, who care? Like, what? I don't care. I don't relate to that, right? But I could relate to it if I was traveling and I couldn't speak Portuguese. And I was in Brazil, right? You know, and I'm like, trying to order a sandwich. So like that to me is the

35:36kind of thing that I'm like, oh, or I need directions because I'm, you know, I'm jogging and I don't know where I'm going. And I do feel like that's the thing that I feel like Meta hasn't done a great job and Chris, you brought this up like when Meta bought Instagram and brought all these other things. Like, what's the connection? What is, why do we want to be part of the Metaverse, right? Yeah, they have a profit thing going. But like, I think to your point, like, there's also something, Apple usually, I would say they wait, they have a mark, they let a market mature in a sense of like behavior, human behavior, right? So you'll, you'll have an experience that will unfold. I mean, if phones, they weren't the first phone, right? I mean, in fact, we had like razor phones and all the other things before that. Blackberries, right? Yeah. So then, but then you have an integration. Something shows up that is essentially an ecosystem in and of itself. And then you have App Store that has, you know, available aspects of that ecosystem. So I think to your point, you're right. I don't know if we're ready in the sense of like we, you know, as all humanity or in particular us on the

36:42front end of the adoption curve that are going to be the buyers initially. But I guess if we ask ourselves like some of those kinds of questions you're starting to get at like use case of like, okay, well, I'm, I'm cooking something, right? Like, and if the ingredients are popping up and I'm seeing some things show, you know, or if I'm at a, you know, I'm, I'm out traveling and, you know, I have this historical stuff that's are showing I can review and I mean, where are those use cases? Are they compelling enough for it, you know, to be a purchasing decision, you know, and then you never want to be educating the consumer about this. You want them to experience it and to know intuitively like, but there is some of that too, which is a Steve thing. You know, it's like, we want to go where the consumer doesn't know they want to go, but they, they want to go there. But are these, are these edge cases? Are they situational? Are they habitual enough where I'd wear another peripheral, you know, I'd wear more, strap more hardware to my body on an everyday basis, knowing that there's, you know, there's already privacy pushback and there's already data mining

37:43pushback and all the complexities that go with it, what I willingly as a participant, like I said, with the iPod, I had gone through two to three, maybe inferior MP3 players that they were around, you know, before I got an iPod and I said, oh, this one, I like this one. But I haven't got gone through two to three inferior AR glasses. Like I know how readily available they are and I just, I'm not, I'm not buying them. Well, it's an interesting point and I, I think, like take Apple Watch, I have one. Well, I've had many because, you know, I get them at Apple, but I can't remember if I bought this one or I got it before I left, but I'm not a, well, I'm not a watch person, you know, so I'd wear it for a little while and then I just don't like having something on my arms, right? Like I just don't, it's kind of, you know, I have the phone and phone has time, it has my schedule, you know, and it tracks even my steps. So, but so that doesn't mean the purchasing cycle gets compressed down to like one time, somebody buys something and they're done, you know, I mean,

38:43AirPods definitely probably stretched, well, I don't know the people re up on AirPods is, you know, and I think even iPhone, you know, it's probably, you know, it's pushed out more years usually for people like they get good enough, right? One and, you know, but I, I guess those are all interesting questions, you know, because it does reflect in the, you know, the flow of business for a product like how well it succeeds, let's say. Right. But those are incremental improvements with, with really seismic improvements over time, but those are category locked. Like I know if I need a laptop, I'm not chopping in price, you know, brand comparing laptops, I'm going to go buy I'm going to go buy a, you know, the Mac laptop, the pro, and if I need a desktop, you know, I'm going to get an iMac. If I need, you know, like those are category locked and it's, I may take a while, like hard, there are where it sticks around for a good, well, thank goodness, but I'm going to functionally replace what I have with Apple's new version of that. So, but how do you, you know,

39:47how do you grow from a category perspective of new introductions? Maybe an algorithm in some ways to iPhone and iPad, which Steve was also strategic about the timing of when to launch either. You know, I, I, I pad later. And, you know, you look at it, it is a category that exists and produces, you know, a lot and people use it for different things, but you could say like there's plenty of overlap. In fact, there was a risk to like, is it going to cannibalize this thing? Like, you know, the whole innovator's dilemma, which I think he referenced frequently, you know, Clayton Christiansen, that question of like, are you killing your business model in the name of going after something? But in this case, like, hey, if it has say 60 to 85 percent that's not overlap, right, that has its own use case, then it's compelling enough probably, right? Because like, if you get glasses, you're like, hey, I could just sit down and I could turn on a movie. And I could use my iPad for that. Like, I could use my iPhone, which my phone isn't as great of experience for watching a movie,

40:49at least for me. But if I had some glasses and it has the effect of I'm sitting watching, you know, that seems like I, it's not the only thing, but among, you know, eight or nine or 10 things, like, oh, that's pretty good. You know, it could compel me to, to buy. And then to your point, it just get, become an anchoring product where people say, hey, I need the next one of that or the, you know, the one that's coming after or whatever. I think it's possible. I think it's, it's entirely possible, you know, but usually like, again, go into the meta example. I think they're doing outside in. It's like, oh, look at the cool factor. You're like, yeah, Ray Bans are cool, but like, they've existed on a market for a long time. And, you know, AR has, it has, you know, some use to it, but it is a good question, Melissa, too, is like how, how, how compelling is that and how compelling is it for your average consumer, not just your tech people that are going to be the first, you know, buyers just to, you know, have it, right? Have it. Yeah. Yeah. I was, it was a little while ago, but I was on an airplane and I saw a guy

41:50wearing out the big meta, you know, helmet-looking biser thing. And, and I, you don't see those out and around like, you agree, you're an early adopter, you paid a premium, but, uh, congratulations, but you're one of a few. Well, we had Google Glass people at Disney, like years, like 10 years, some years ago. Yeah. But they had like this thing on the side and then they were like, is he filming me all the time? I don't know, because it just looked like this awkward thing. But I think if you have a cool thing, and that was, if I maybe analogous to the AirPods, where it's just like, that was that cool factor. And the funny part about that was the STEM originally engineers hate, they hated it. And they wanted the design team to fix it or design team, sorry. And engineers couldn't, because you just had to have, you know, in antenna, I worked with antenna teams and they thought, uh, this is going to be, you know, terrible. People are going to make fun of it. It was a little bit of a meme, but everybody loved it, right? Ultimately. And it became actually funny enough iconic. And so is there some of that? I think Apple has been so intentional about design being the heartbeat of their company, like form and functions,

42:53synonymous, that I can't imagine a scenario that like, if you're going for a true consumer product, not see Vision Pro to me was almost like a, uh, iteration test run, kind of, let's just learn some stuff, you know, kind of experience. I don't know if it was realistically I thought, hey, we're going to get big numbers out of it. And that's, that's actually unusual for Apple, to kind of release something. But I think the next phase of whatever it looks like, whatever it is for AR, um, I think they've thought enough about it. They pressure tested it enough. I was sat near the secret lab, you know, where they worked on this stuff for a very long time. And I think there's been enough maturity in the market, you know, to trigger enough, I think people that would purchase it. And, you know, to what extent is that use case and does it broaden over time and other applications that become more compelling, um, as use case, I think, and that goes back to what you're saying, well, this is like, but how, how useful are these, these kinds of apps or use,

43:55you know, these applications, these things that you can do. I don't, but I don't think Apple gets in the game of something truly in the game without having thought that through deeply for many, many years. So my sense is they'll have it with those things. That's my guess. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and as an Apple loyalist for a long time, I would love to be proven wrong about AR. I mean, they clearly know what they're doing. I was, I was, I have a pretty good track record overall. I was wrong about the iPad too. I said, why do you know, you have your phone, you have, you have your, your laptop, why do you need another screen? Like, who's going to use this? And clearly we all do. It's, they're still around and it's still maybe not as, I don't even check their sales. Maybe not to the degree that they once were, but they're still healthy and robust. And they've, for sure, you know, validated the iPad many times over. So I think, you know, we'll figure out our fix, but with Ternis as a product guy, I think what people are going to be holding out for is not just an incremental announcement. You know, two times more battery life to one point eight times

44:58more. But like, what's the big drop the mic? Like, what is, what is this next thing? You know, and there's a, there's a window for that. And I don't know if it's, you know, obviously day one, give the guys some breathing room, day 30 people are going to start making their own assumptions, six or eight months in, they're going to get skidded. If you've ever worked for any company anywhere, you know, there's the process that's supposed to happen and then there's whatever one actually does. The problem is most leaders can't see that gap, which makes it pretty hard to know it's actually worth fixing. That's why I like scribe optimized, which automatically discovers workflows across your approved business applications. No interviews, no workshops, just how work actually happens. It's live dashboard gives you a clear view of how work gets done across all your teams. So you can see which tools are being used, where times being spent, and where the biggest inefficiencies are hiding. And it doesn't just point those out. It explains why they're happening and recommends ways to fix them with estimated time savings built in. That's way more useful than just knowing where

46:00the problems are. What I also like is that this is about leadership visibility, not employee monitoring. In fact, user level data is anonymized by default and sensitive information is automatically redacted. And none of it ever leaves your firewall. So you're getting true operational insights without compromising anyone's privacy. To see scribe optimize in action like I did, had described how slash fixed it and mentioned fixed it for a 30 day risk free trial. That's SCRIBE.HowSlasHFIXEDIT. Funny about all that too to me is like that craving in and of itself is validation of their ecosystem. You know what I mean? Like the fact that we care that much and that deeply, we want to see great things come from Apple because we want to buy them. Right, right? I don't you don't hear that. Yeah, you don't hear that about many other companies. I don't hear Google hardware at all. Samsung, not really. I don't hear it about, you know, really anything. It's just, it's very much an Apple thing. Yeah, no, I use that as an example. I'll say to people

47:06just hypothetically like, have you heard of the new app that the new Apple is coming out? And they go, what? You know, and they I didn't say the new Apple what? You know, it's just the fact that there's something that we don't know about from Apple is like they're they light up. It's crazy. Yeah, and I do think that it does put a pressure on whoever's coming in to Tim's you know, role as CEO, but I do think that to your point, Chris and you know, I love this conversation. The transition for him is really more just getting on the pathway that's already been there. Right. We have talked about a lot of companies and changes in leadership and we've even talked about how CEOs fail upwards. Like, it's kind of crazy, right. But I think the one thing that doesn't come into play is the succession planning that is very intentional and purposeful like it feels like

48:10here at Apple, right? Where, you know, it's from within, it's from people that are trusted, others will trust. I do feel like there have been these cautionary tales of large companies such as Disney, such as Starbucks, such as, you know, any any of these, you know, Fortune five and Apple. I mean, John Scully, Gil Emelio. Yeah, that that just in it, just in it land well. And I think that that's the thing that, you know, the hope is that people can learn from these types of scenarios. But unfortunately, these mistakes keep getting made over and over. And so really for John, it's about leaning into what he knows, what Apple knows, right, which is that culture, which is, you know, their vision. And they have an operating model and a decision making model design model that has always been the framework that has helped them succeed. So they should always continue

49:12upon that. But also like, you know, we just talked about leaning into who are the people around you that make sure that you're you know, that are pushing you to be the best that you can be, right? And I think that's really important as well. And also being honest about to Aaron's point, like, you know, it would be great if he had a mic drop moment very quickly in the first 180 days. But that's probably not going to happen. So understanding, you know, what the pressures are, what the expectations are, but also like keep staying true to the intention of Apple. So I think those are the things that are going to be really important for him. I'm sure that he's been getting guidance from everybody, including Tim about how to handle this. And it's interesting because I feel like there's less of a fix here, but more of like understanding what they're doing. Aaron, that's my feeling. Yeah, this is kind of like mitigation, right? Like I think preemptive positioning for success.

50:13There's not really a broken per se. I mean, I've been I've been at places that were, let's broken. I was at Dell when they the PC business like deteriorated. It was insane. Michael came back. I got to work with him and they got to reset, right? Their culture and their focus. And you know, years later, it's proven out. But I think that that's not the case here. It's almost a preemptive, like let's not let it break. And you know, John is a product of the culture. That's unique, right? Gill Amelia was not a product of Apple culture. John Scully was not. He was a traditional general manager from Pepsi. He was used to like just scale production of like something people love and just keep making more of it, right? Like McDonald's billions and billions served. That is not Apple and granted. I think it was with the right spirit that Steve selected. But that also might have been wisdom gained for Steve, which was, first of all, he got failed or fired. So he ends up the wilderness, right? Which is brutal. But in that journey, he goes from rough Steve to change

51:15Steve. And you know, I think maybe part of that was learning the hard way about succession, getting the right person, right? Positioned. Thus, you know, not grabbing somebody that or positioning somebody that would do damage to the company, right? Or just not be successful at the role that thus, you know, Tim in this case. And I would even take it further, which would say, I knew a lot of the other people that were being looked at, right? For beyond, you know, Tim and you know, guys like Dan Richio who, you know, smart hardware person understands that business, but very Steve like in terms of rough Steve and rough Steve defined as like or Tony Fidel. I mean, this guy goes out and talks about like how he was the next CEO and all this stuff. He was never looked at for that, but maybe back in the day, he was never going to be the next CEO of Apple. And there's a lot of the host of reasons for that. And I think when you look at a John, and this is congruent with Tim, and it is congruent with change Steve, if you ask Ed Cappell, who started Pixar and he worked with

52:19Steve for the longest 26 years. He's a friend and a mentor of mine. He would say, you know, Steve went on the classic heroes journey and he learned some of the hard things and in the wilderness. And I would say, you know, okay, people might say, well, Tim, they haven't experienced that, you know, or a John, but I would say they have almost by carelessly through the culture itself, right? Apple. Right. So they got, they see, they've experienced and what it produces a sense of humility in a leader where to your point Melissa, they're able to step back and say, hey, I don't have all the answers here. I can ask great questions. And we can synthesize and build on that. I think that will be a challenge for John in the sense of he's really deeply known the hardware space, but he's also a strong partnership with people like Khan, who runs operations. Priya, she also runs operations. Deirdre, right on the retail side, on the software side, you know, people like Sebastian, Lin Young's,

53:23Craig Federighi. And so he already is built a lot of this, but I think it's at least a 10x. That sounds like a build up to a fix to me. So let's fix Apple and the leadership transition that we are all seeing play out in real time. And I like fixes where the house isn't falling down. Like, this is, you know, there's things we can suggest for what we like to see or improvements, or just, you know, what the vision is over time. But we're not fixing something where it's a crumbling ecosystem like this, a healthy company. It's, you know, we believe this is the right sea coming in at the right time. And so what we'd recommend, let's pull it together. We've talked about having the right people in place. Trusting those people are there for a reason, knowing that you're going to be pulled in to weigh in on different decisions, including Apple TVs, programming, chances are he's not in the writer's room with, with, you know, blocking out storylines for the studio season three. Like,

54:25hopefully he understands the people in charge there and, and can assert the right types of opinions. And then go on to the next thing because he's got to spend a bunch of plates. So not getting too pulled into areas that are just, you know, outside of potentially is not saying he's not a talented guy, but where his time is best used and his influence is best asserted over the company. He's coming into a company that since Tim Cook is much more collaborative. So really, culture wise, you know, you can't just come in and squash that collaboration and say singular vision, one person, everything fall line under my rule. No, it's you're coming into a collaborative company. So foster that collaboration and encourage it and prompt the growth from within because Apple someday is going to look for another successor and that person better be their in-house. Maybe they've got a decade or decades to prove that out. If we, oh, and then on the product line, we're probably, you know, as consumers, we're going to look to, from some signaling from a product guy to say, we've been keeping it quiet,

55:26we've been on to something for a good while. And I don't know, maybe that's AR. Don't trust me on the specific recommendation for the product. Like I said, career wise, I've had a good run and continue to Apple. I was skeptical on the iPad. I was skeptical on the watch. I was skeptical on the iPod. So don't ask me what my specific recommendation is on what that product is. Obviously, they know clearly they know what they're doing, but you know, there will be a window. And maybe it's a generous window with a new CEO come in, but there will be a window to wait for that. Not just, again, a little bit longer battery life for a little bit, a bit bigger hard driver. What's the new thing? We all want to know when can we have it? Even if it's 2020, tell us now, you know, they're going to look for, well, I think I'll speak for everybody. We're going to look for some kind of signaling from Apple that, guess what? We held onto this thing. It's incredible. Here's our new CEO to tell you about it. Boom. So if all those things come into play, seamless transition,

56:30company on top gets even bigger in all the positive and ways that, you know, all the right ways the company would like to see Melissa, did we fix it? I think so. And like I said earlier, I don't know that there was a lot that needed to be fixed. I would say to the point, and I love, thank you, Chris, for being here talking about their product and their culture. But I would say protect that practically interchangeable culture and product bond while changing potentially the operating mechanics around it, which are those things that can be easily adjusted, can be improved, could be automated, but also could be reversible. And those are things that aren't, you know, the core, which is really that culture and product. And then the last thing was kind of what we were about talking about here when we were talking about the vibe and what people's expectations of Apple are. I'd really say sell the thesis. Don't just live it. And this is something Chris, you brought up again, but Apple's, you know, wait until it's excellent, wait until it's almost

57:34perfect approach is legitimate strategy. And they've proven that time and time again. It ends up in great sales and it ends up in product adoption by millions and millions and billions of consumers. But it's also not communicated all the time. And so externally, it's kind of reading as, oh, what's going on with they are? What's kind of going on here? So I think that there's a way I know their marketing team is genius that they could do something that would also lend to that transition with turnus and be able to kind of say, hey, let's be careful about hoping for a mic drop in September at Macworld, you know, you know, let's let's give him time. But let's understand that he's one of those people that, you know, we're brewing for excellence. And that's what we're getting. Thanks, Melissa. Chris, again, we're not fixing a broken company. We're looking at a company that has endless possibility and opportunity with the new CEO at the helm. Do we give the right

58:35types of advice to carry this forward? Yeah, I like what you captured there. And I think those are critical pieces. And then what you said, Melissa, it reminds me of I keep quoting Steve. I mean, just the premise of a lot of things is like he said, the future belongs to the best storyteller. And yeah, I think it's a fair point is what is the core narrative? And there were moments in time where Apple is very clear about sharing that vision of the future with people. But they're also people and I've worked with the design team. They'll go through 200 iterations, right, to get that perfect thing. So do you really want to rush Michael Angelo sculpture? You know, yeah. Thanks, Chris. I know you've been close to this. I really appreciate your perspective here with us. This is going to close out our episode of We Fixed Your Welcome. Thank you, Melissa. Big thank you to Chris Deever. Chris, I don't know if you know this, but on our show, we're known as the Fearless Fixers. And your company is called Brave Core. And Fearless and Brave

59:38go together pretty well. So how can our listeners get a hold of you? I'd love to connect. We'd love to connect with you. We have a website bravecore.co. We have a sub stack brave together that goes out weekly. And then you can connect on LinkedIn. There's a book we have called Brave Together that captures the essence of this Apple story, the shift from, you know, think different to working different together. And you know, some of the Disney Pixar experiences as I shared. And, and just really about how to lead the future with your team. Fantastic. Thank you again, Chris. Thanks to your listeners, unless John Ternis is listening. And with Chris here, he just might. The good news is that none of us have to replace Tim Cook. Those are big shoes to fill. John, we're rooting for you. For peace of mind, whatever Apple puts out next, I'll probably buy it. Whether you listened to us on Airpods or watch us on YouTube, we're glad you do. Be sure to connect with us on social at We Fixed it Pod. And we will see you next time. We hope you enjoyed this episode of We Fixed it. You're

1:00:41welcome. We go into every episode somewhat cold. And nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. All trademarks, IP and brand elements remain property of their respective owners.