More reports about Apple succession planning ↦

The Apple executive transition speculation keeps heating up. On Thursday, The New York Times’s Kalley Huang and Tripp Mickle weighed in with a profile of John Ternus, reportedly a candidate to replace Tim Cook as CEO:

Apple last year began accelerating its planning for Mr. Cook’s succession, according to three people close to the company who spoke on the condition of anonymity about Apple’s confidential deliberations. Mr. Cook, 65, has told senior leaders that he is tired and would like to reduce his workload, the people said. Should he step down, Mr. Cook is likely to become the chairman of Apple’s board, according to three people close to the company.

I’ve expected the transition for Cook to board chair for a while. It makes too much sense, because it allows him to keep doing some work—including, probably, the more high-level political stuff that has become part of Apple’s world—while a new CEO can get their sea legs and focus on other parts of the business. And Cook may not love that political stuff, but I get the strong sense that he’s good at it.

I don’t know if Tim Cook is really “tired” (maybe it’s from all those early mornings and high-intensity workouts?), but it seems entirely reasonable to me for a 65-year-old man to consider cutting back on his workload and provide support for a CEO transition that he (sadly) couldn’t get from Steve Jobs1.

This part of the article struck me from a pure journalism standpoint:

Despite his low profile, Mr. Ternus appears to have shot to the front of the pack to be Apple’s next C.E.O., according to four people close to the company. But Mr. Cook is also preparing several other internal candidates to be his potential successor, two of the people said. They could include Craig Federighi, Apple’s head of software; Eddy Cue, its head of services; Greg Joswiak, its head of worldwide marketing; and Deirdre O’Brien, its head of retail and human resources.

Note how the attribution changes across those three sentences.

Four people “close to the company” say that Ternus is the frontrunner to be CEO.

Two of those people say Cook is preparing other candidates as well.

And then… uh, here are some names.

The placement of those sentences would imply that they’re all of a kind, but they actually seem to be in decreasing order of accuracy. Four people say Ternus is the frontrunner. Two say he’s not the only person being prepared. And then… there’s a list of names, which you might assume were floated by the previous sources, but the article doesn’t actually say that.

My guess: An editor at the Times got out their red pen (or modern equivalent) and wrote “Who?” next to “several other internal candidates.” So Huang and Mickle supplied some names. But did they get those names from sources? It doesn’t say so. It reads more like they got those names from Apple’s executive page and their own musings. Let’s make no assumptions about the fact that Federighi, Cue, Joswiak, and O’Brien are listed.

Also, it would be completely irresponsible for Tim Cook not to prepare several other candidates to be his potential successor. What if something happens to John Ternus? What if the board decides, for whatever reason, they just can’t hire him? What if the board has asked Cook to prepare several candidates for the job, in case they aren’t satisfied with his preferred choice? This seems like basic good governance to me. It doesn’t mean that the fix is in, nor does it mean that there’s a legitimate competition going on.

The more I think about this entire process, the more I reflect on the fact that Cook himself had to step in for Jobs multiple times due to his predecessor’s failing health. And when Jobs finally made the decision to move up to the job of Chairman and Cook was named CEO, he was too ill to really act as that form of mentor before he died a couple of months later.

I have to think that, above all else, Tim Cook wants to provide his successor a better transition. And it’s impossible not to look at the ongoing reports from Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and now the New York Times and not get the sense that Cook’s succession planning is kicking into gear.

Not to mention the disastrous transitions at other companies, like Bob Iger’s long goodbye-or-not at Disney that’s still ongoing. ↩

Go to the linked site.

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