Dithering is my and Ben Thompson’s twice-a-week podcast — 15 minutes per episode, not a minute less, not a minute more. It’s a $7/month or $70/year subscription, and included in the Stratechery Plus bundle (a bargain). This year our CMS (Passport — check it out) gained a feature that lets us make some episodes free for everyone to listen to on the website. Today’s episode, regarding Alan Dye leaving Apple for Meta, seems like a good one to do that with. (And, once again, this month’s album art serendipitously captures my mood.)

Give it a listen. Subscribe if you enjoy it.

Aaron Tilley and Wayne Ma, in a piece headlined “Why Silicon Valley is Buzzing About Apple CEO Succession” at the paywalled-up-the-wazoo The Information:

Prediction site Polymarket places Ternus’ odds of getting the job at nearly 55%, ahead of other current Apple executives such as software head Craig Federighi, Chief Operating Officer Sabih Khan and marketing head Greg Joswiak. But some people close to Apple don’t believe Ternus is ready to take on such a high-profile role, and that could make a succession announcement unlikely anytime soon, said people familiar with the company.

Nothing in the rest of the article backs up that “some people close to Apple don’t believe Ternus is ready” claim, other than this, several paragraphs later:

And while his fans believe Ternus has the temperament to be CEO, many of them say he isn’t a charismatic leader in the mold of a Jobs. He has also had little involvement in the geopolitical and government affairs issues that dominate most of Cook’s time these days. On a recent trip to China, for example, Apple’s new COO, Sabih Khan, accompanied Cook to some of his meetings.

No one else in the history of the industry, let alone the company, has the charisma of Steve Jobs. And while I think Polymarket has the shortlist of candidates right, I also think they have them listed in the right order. Sabih Khan probably should be considered an outside-chance maybe, but the fact that he accompanied Cook to China doesn’t make think, for a second, that it’s in preparation to name him CEO. If Kahn were being groomed to become CEO, he’d have started appearing in keynotes already. It’s silly to slag Ternus for not having the charisma of Steve Jobs, when Ternus has been a strong presence in keynotes since 2018, and in the same paragraph suggest Khan as a better option, when Khan has never once appeared in a keynote or public appearance representing Apple.

Some former Apple executives hope a dark-horse candidate emerges. For example, Tony Fadell, a former Apple hardware executive who coinvented [sic] the iPod, has told associates recently that he would be open to replacing Cook as CEO, according to people who have heard his remarks. (Other people close to Apple consider Fadell an unlikely candidate, in part because he was a polarizing figure when he worked at the company. Fadell left Apple in 2010.)

The parenthetical undersells the unlikelihood of Fadell returning to Apple, ever, in any role, let alone the borderline insanity of suggesting he’d come back as Cook’s successor.

It has become one of the strangest succession spectacles in tech. Typically, the kind of buzz that is swirling around Cook occurs when companies are performing badly or a CEO has dropped hints that they’re getting ready to hang up their spurs. Neither applies in Cook’s case, though.

There’s nothing strange about it. Apple has a unique company culture, but so too do its peers, like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google. And just like at those companies, it’s therefore a certainty that Cook’s replacement will from within the company. Polymarket doesn’t even list anyone other than Ternus, Federighi, Joswiak, and Khan.

As for hints, there are no needs for a hint other than the fact that Cook is now 65 years old and his been in the job since 2011.

This interview was both interesting and a lot of fun. Worth a listen or re-listen.

Apple Newsroom, yesterday:

Apple today announced that Jennifer Newstead will become Apple’s general counsel on March 1, 2026, following a transition of duties from Kate Adams, who has served as Apple’s general counsel since 2017. She will join Apple as senior vice president in January, reporting to CEO Tim Cook and serving on Apple’s executive team.

In addition, Lisa Jackson, vice president for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, will retire in late January 2026. The Government Affairs organization will transition to Adams, who will oversee the team until her retirement late next year, after which it will be led by Newstead. Newstead’s title will become senior vice president, General Counsel and Government Affairs, reflecting the combining of the two organizations. The Environment and Social Initiatives teams will report to Apple chief operating officer Sabih Khan. [...]

Newstead was most recently chief legal officer at Meta and previously served as the legal adviser of the U.S. Department of State, where she led the legal team responsible for advising the Secretary of State on legal issues affecting the conduct of U.S. foreign relations.

Monday’s announcement that AI head John Giannandrea is retiring and the hierarchy for AI related projects being further reshuffled under software head Craig Federighi was significant, but not surprising, given how things went this year for Apple with AI.

Wednesday’s announcement that VP of design and Liquid Glass frontman Alan Dye is leaving Apple for Meta was a shock, both inside and outside the company. As I wrote this week, I think it’s great news for Apple, but not by plan.

This news yesterday is just typical planned retirements. The timing is slightly unfortunate though. In the eyes of observers unfamiliar with the company, they might be misconstrued as signs of executive upheaval, occurring on the heels of the minor and major dramas of Giannandrea’s and Dye’s departures. The Jackson / Adams / Newstead transitions announced yesterday are nothing of the sort.

Jackson had a very nice run at Apple and carved out a rather unique position within the company. Apple’s environmental efforts expanded tremendously under her leadership. I’ve never met anyone with a bad word to say about her, and in my own interactions, found her downright delightful.

As for Adams, the responsibilities of Apple’s general counsel are generally far afield from my interests. The only two times I’ve mentioned her at DF were when she got the job in 2017, and a passing reference when the FBI sent a letter to Apple, addressed to Adams, in 2020 regarding the locked phone of a mass shooter in Pensacola, Florida. That’s a sign of a good run for Apple’s general counsel — that’s a job where it’s good to stay out of the news.

Lastly, I wouldn’t read anything into Newstead coming to Apple by way of Meta. But it is a bit funny that it was announced the day after Dye left Apple for Meta. She seems to have an excellent wide-ranging background to spearhead Apple’s government affairs. Her stint in the State Department was during the first (now seemingly sane) Trump administration, but she clerked for liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.