Hello, Hola, Bonjour John Ternus
Tim Cook’s tenure at Apple was defined by consistency. He scaled the company around the iPhone, expanded its services business, and built one of the most efficient operating models in tech.
As he steps down, that structure remains firmly in place.
There’s an inevitable comparison to the last major transition, when Steve Jobs handed over the CEO role. That moment carried a different level of weight, but it set the precedent for how Apple manages leadership change: internally developed and tightly controlled.
John Ternus now steps into that model with a background rooted in hardware and product execution. As the industry shifts toward AI and new computing platforms, the question everyone’s asking is where it goes next, and whether its current approach can carry it there. Read more about it…
TNCR EXECUTIVE RESEARCH
TNCR CxO Checkpoint: Talent and Operating Model
This survey focuses on examining how leaders are building teams, structuring decisions, and addressing the capability and leadership gaps that most affect execution across their organization.
Big Tech in the Headlines
Amazon is going deeper with Anthropic. Another $5 billion is going in, but the bigger piece is the $100 billion+ commitment to AWS over the next decade. These deals are starting to look less like investments and more like long-term infrastructure lock-ins. You’re seeing the same pattern across the space.
The companies building models are getting tightly tied to the platforms they run on, and those relationships are getting harder to unwind over time. Google, meanwhile, is pushing further into its own chip strategy. The next round of TPUs is focused on inference.
This is where performance starts to show up in real products through speed, cost, and responsiveness. Different approaches, but the same direction. A lot of this is being shaped behind the scenes at the infrastructure level, not just at the model layer.
Workplace AI Growth Continues Despite Limited System Change
Recent research shows around 46% of U.S. employees are using AI at work in some capacity, often for things like summarizing information or generating ideas. What’s interesting is where it stops.
About 65% of those in AI-enabled workplaces say it’s improved productivity, but only around 10% feel it’s actually changed how work is structured inside their company.
So far, it’s showing up more in day-to-day tasks than in full organizational shifts, though that may not stay true for long. Jump into the full research…
UnitedHealth Outlines Its 2026 AI Push
UnitedHealth is putting real money behind AI. The company’s latest earnings call revealed plans to invest about $1.5 billion in 2026, with a focus on everything from internal workflows to customer and provider experiences.
The update came alongside a solid quarter, with revenue reaching $111.7 billion and results coming in ahead of internal expectations across its core businesses. Read more…
