I Spent 30 Minutes With Apple’s CEO. Now I Know Why John Ternus Got the Job

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The brief ceremony introducing the new Macbook Pro this week was as low-key as the presenter, Apple’s new CEO John Ternus. He stepped onto the low stage at a Los Angeles event space with zero fanfare, said hi, and queued up a video showing the first touchscreen Mac. Then he released the modest crowd of journalists and creators to get hands-on with the new laptop and roam between eye-popping demos of music producers, filmmakers, photographers, and fashion designers using the laptop.

本周介绍新款 Macbook Pro 的简短仪式和发布者——苹果新任首席执行官约翰·特努斯（John Ternus）一样低调。他毫无排场地走上洛杉矶活动现场的低矮舞台，打了个招呼，随后播放了一段展示首款触屏 Mac 的视频。接着，他让在场的媒体记者和创作者们亲身体验这款新笔记本电脑，并穿梭于音乐制作人、电影制作人、摄影师和时装设计师使用该设备的精彩演示之间。

Ternus, who at 51 is on the younger side of Apple’s top management, has been CEO for less than two months. But this launch and a series of other recent announcements have made one thing clear. With this new guy—if a 25-year Apple veteran could be considered new—it’s all about the products. Perhaps fittingly, the biggest noise of the presentation came when Ternus revealed that the new device restores the illumination to the Apple logo. Maybe that’s a symbol that in the age of AI, Apple is beaming out the message that hardware still rules.

现年 51 岁的特努斯在苹果高层中属于年轻一代，他担任首席执行官的时间还不到两个月。但这次发布会以及最近的一系列公告明确了一点：对于这位“新人”——如果一位在苹果工作了 25 年的老将能被称为新人的话——一切都以产品为核心。或许恰如其分的是，发布会现场最大的轰动来自于特努斯透露新款设备恢复了苹果标志的背光设计。这或许象征着在人工智能时代，苹果正在向外界传递一个信号：硬件依然至上。

A few minutes after the presentation, I sat down with Ternus, for the second time in two days. Steve Jobs used to grant me an audience after his famous keynotes, too. Ternus isn’t Jobs, of course, nor is he supposed to be. But who is he?

发布会结束后几分钟，我与特努斯坐下来交谈，这是我两天内第二次采访他。史蒂夫·乔布斯过去也常在著名的主题演讲后接受我的采访。当然，特努斯不是乔布斯，他也不必成为乔布斯。但他究竟是谁呢？

I first met Ternus in 2015, when I spent a day with him at Apple’s Input Design Lab, a testing facility in Cupertino. He’d risen to VP for Mac, iPad, Ecosystem, and Audio Engineering, and he struck me as affable and knowledgeable. (He spent four years right out of college at a virtual reality company, but he’s been at Apple since.) The peg to my story at the time was how this unknown manager conducted a Javert-like investigation to fix the weird sound a redesigned mouse made when sliding on a table.

我第一次见到特努斯是在 2015 年，当时我在苹果位于库比蒂诺的输入设计实验室（Input Design Lab）与他共度了一天。那时他已升任 Mac、iPad、生态系统和音频工程副总裁，给我的印象是和蔼可亲且知识渊博。（他大学毕业后曾在一家虚拟现实公司工作了四年，但此后一直留在苹果。）当时我报道的重点是，这位名不见经传的经理是如何像沙威警长（Javert）一样执着地调查，以解决重新设计的鼠标在桌面上滑动时发出的怪声。

That attention to detail was a legacy of Jobs’ perfectionism, which Tim Cook sustained as the next CEO. In the decade when Ternus overlapped with Jobs, he says he had only “a handful of interactions” with the founder. “But I’ve always felt like sort of a student of Steve’s teachings,” Ternus said. “And then being able to work very closely with Tim, I’ve been very lucky.”

这种对细节的关注是乔布斯完美主义的遗产，蒂姆·库克作为继任首席执行官延续了这一传统。在特努斯与乔布斯共事的十年里，他说自己与这位创始人只有“寥寥几次互动”。“但我一直觉得自己算是史蒂夫教诲的学生，”特努斯说，“而且能够与蒂姆密切合作，我非常幸运。”

Ternus has so far been defined by his product prowess. “John innately has a great sense for great products, and that’s what Apple is,” says Greg Joswiak, Apple’s SVP of worldwide marketing and a 40-year company veteran. “You can’t teach that.” In one sense Ternus’ ascension is similar to that of Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, another lifer promoted to the top post. But Nadella was called upon to fix a broken organization, while Apple has been on a multi-decade run. Ternus is explicit that he will be an engine of continuity. That word is key to his selection, and above all explains why Tim Cook and the rest of Apple’s board was so comfortable with the choice.

到目前为止，特努斯的特质在于他的产品能力。“约翰天生对优秀产品有着敏锐的直觉，而这正是苹果的本质，”苹果全球营销高级副总裁、在公司工作了 40 年的格雷格·乔斯维亚克（Greg Joswiak）说，“这是教不出来的。”从某种意义上说，特努斯的晋升与微软的萨提亚·纳德拉（Satya Nadella）类似，后者也是在公司工作了一辈子后被提拔到最高职位。但纳德拉受命于危难之际，旨在修复一个破碎的组织，而苹果几十年来一直处于上升期。特努斯明确表示，他将成为延续性的引擎。这个词是他入选的关键，也最能解释为什么蒂姆·库克和苹果董事会的其他成员对这一选择感到如此放心。

The extent to which Ternus is a deep Apple insider became clear when I probed him on his views on being a corporate leader. I asked him which non-Apple CEOs he admires, and he was stumped. “I haven’t really thought about that,” he said. I asked whether any business books had an impact on him. “Not really,” he said. “Of course I’ve read books, but there’s so much to be learned from the people I get to work with.” Indeed, every time I tried to pin down Ternus on what mark he wants to make at Apple, he deflected the question and told me how he will continue Apple’s commitment to internal collaboration.

当我探究特努斯对企业领导者的看法时，他作为苹果资深内部人士的特质显露无遗。我问他钦佩哪些非苹果公司的首席执行官，他被问住了。“我还没怎么想过这个问题，”他说。我问是否有商业书籍对他产生过影响。“没怎么有，”他说，“我当然读过书，但从我共事的人身上能学到更多。”事实上，每当我试图追问特努斯想在苹果留下什么印记时，他都会避开这个问题，转而告诉我他将如何延续苹果对内部协作的承诺。

Ternus’ key collaborator is probably Johny Srouji, the architect of the company’s custom silicon, an initiative that’s driven many of the company’s innovations in the past decade. Srouri says that their relationship will be even closer, as Apple has merged its hardware engineering and technology organizations with Srouji at the top, reporting to Ternus. “John is going to be a great CEO,” he said. “He’s a product guy at heart, but Apple’s secret weapon is the DNA, the culture, which is not going to change. Remember, John has been here for 25 years. It’s not like he’s going to come and everything’s going to be different.”

特努克的关键合作伙伴可能是强尼·斯鲁吉（Johny Srouji），他是苹果定制芯片的架构师，这一举措推动了公司过去十年的许多创新。斯鲁吉表示，他们的关系将更加紧密，因为苹果已经合并了硬件工程和技术部门，由斯鲁吉领导，并向特努斯汇报。“约翰会成为一位出色的首席执行官，”他说，“他本质上是个产品人，但苹果的秘密武器是基因和文化，这些都不会改变。记住，约翰已经在苹果工作了 25 年。他上任后，一切并不会发生翻天覆地的变化。”

Being Apple’s CEO encompasses much more than products—there’s a $100 billion business in services, a huge infrastructure, and the general mishegoss of running a giant corporation. I asked Ternus what it’s like to take on a massively expanded portfolio. “One of the amazing privileges of this job is getting to learn so many new things,” he said. “I have been and will continue to learn and go deeper into different areas. But, you know, I do love product. I’m super passionate about it.”

担任苹果首席执行官不仅仅涉及产品——还有价值 1000 亿美元的服务业务、庞大的基础设施，以及经营一家巨型企业所带来的各种琐事。我问特努斯承担如此庞大的业务组合是什么感觉。“这份工作最棒的特权之一就是能学到这么多新东西，”他说，“我一直在学习，并将继续深入了解不同领域。但是，你知道，我确实热爱产品。我对此充满热情。”

Like it or not, the CEO of a $4 trillion company has to be involved in policy and politics. It has been widely reported that as executive chair, Cook will still conduct some of Apple’s high-level policy duties, including the equivalent of stuffing gold-plated binkies in the presidential mouth. Ternus implies that the reality is more nuanced. “Tim is available to help wherever I ask him, and it’s great to have him in that role,” he said. “He obviously has a ton of relationships he’s developed over the years, and of course, I’m building new relationships in this role as well.” One relationship he has yet to build: the president. Ternus has yet to meet Donald Trump.

无论喜欢与否，一家 4 万亿美元公司的首席执行官都必须参与政策和政治。据广泛报道，作为执行董事长，库克仍将履行苹果的一些高层政策职责，包括那些相当于“给总统喂金奶嘴”的游说工作。特努斯暗示现实情况更为微妙。“只要我提出要求，蒂姆随时愿意提供帮助，他在那个角色上发挥作用真是太好了，”他说，“他显然在多年来建立了大量人脉，当然，我也正在这个职位上建立新的人脉。”他尚未建立的一种关系是：与总统的关系。特努斯至今尚未见过唐纳德·特朗普。

Then there’s the one thing that could possibly disrupt the way Apple has run its business for the past 50 years. Ternus is taking over the company during what may be the biggest technological shift ever. I suggested to Ternus that history may judge him on how he handles AI. I spelled out for him a couple of narratives people spin about Apple. One is that Apple has been hobbled by a failure to develop its AI product Siri, and even after an update it’s still in catch-up mode. The other is that Apple is smart to avoid the high cost of developing a frontier model and that the strategy of organically putting AI into its products, with a focus on privacy, will pay off in the long run.

此外，还有一件事可能会颠覆苹果过去 50 年的经营方式。特努斯接管公司之际，正值科技史上可能最大的变革时期。我向特努斯建议，历史可能会根据他处理人工智能的方式来评价他。我为他列举了人们关于苹果的几种说法。一种是苹果因未能开发好人工智能产品 Siri 而受阻，即使在更新后仍处于追赶模式；另一种是苹果明智地避免了开发前沿模型的高昂成本，其将人工智能有机地融入产品并专注于隐私的策略，从长远来看将会获得回报。

“Everyone has an opinion—I really like where we’re at,” he said. “I would hope pe

“每个人都有自己的看法——我真的很喜欢我们现在的处境，”他说，“我希望人……”