In late July, current and former Apple product developers gathered for a reunion at the company’s Cupertino, Calif. headquarters. As evening fell and guests sipped drinks and ate hors d’oeuvres, John Ternus slipped into the Observatory building, an event space embedded into a meadow with a large oval window that looks out toward Apple’s main building.
Some guests were surprised to see Ternus at the gathering, held to celebrate a design team executive’s 30th anniversary at the company. Ternus, who was anointed Apple’s next CEO in April, had just finished a long day of reporting the company’s quarterly earnings. But he hung around and worked the crowd, flashing his signature warm smile and reminiscing about memories.
Ternus gave no formal speech, but he projected calm confidence, and in individual conversations, he spoke with genuine excitement for Apple’s product roadmap over the next several years. “It was super reassuring,” one event attendee told Fortune, asking to remain anonymous to discuss a private Apple gathering. “He holds a tremendous amount of optimism and belief that hard things can be worked out.”
Ternus will certainly have plenty of hard things to work out at the $4.6 trillion company that he’ll lead as of Tuesday, when Tim Cook ends his tenure as CEO and becomes executive chairman of Apple’s board of directors. While the consumer giant’s reach has never been wider, it’s also confronting some of the biggest trials of its 50-year history.
