Familyandtrends 129

What Apple has understood about the future and Italian entrepreneurs (still) don't

by Bernardo Bertoldi*

2 May 2026

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

3' min read

Translated by AI

Versione italiana

The recent announcement of John Ternus as Apple's next CEO, with Tim Cook assuming the role of Executive Chairman, confirms what was written in "The generational transition: the American lesson". The announcement highlights how succession at the helm of a company is not only a delicate process for Italian family businesses.

familyandtrends, a year ago, in The best way to make a good generational transition is... to found a university! , he recounted Steve Jobs' masterful generational transition that led the company he founded to make, today, more profit than when Jobs left it. The transition from Cook to Ternus will be just as interesting: Cook may not have been the iconic founder, but he remains a leader who in 15 years has multiplied turnover and profits by 4 and created 850 (!) million dollars a day of wealth for shareholders.

A few weeks before the announcement, Cook said: 'I would say [to my successor]: be yourself; keep a North Star firmly on the values of the company. Because if the values are right, if you keep the North Star clearly in sight, you might veer off course a little bit, but eventually you will get back on the right track. I have always found that to be the case'. Something similar to what Steve Jobs said to him: 'Don't ask what I would do, just do the right thing'.

Jobs wanted to avoid what had happened at Disney, a company he knew very well. In fact, he had become its largest shareholder when he sold Pixar to Disney in a 'paper for paper' swap, while he was no longer a large shareholder in Apple, having sold all his shares after being forced out in 1985. After Walt Disney's death, his successors were stuck wondering what he would do instead of taking care of the deep identity of the company. Only the intervention of Walt's brother Roy, which led to the appointment of Eisner as CEO, allowed the company to be restored to its entrepreneurial essence.

Jobs, in order to ensure that his successor would be able to evolve Apple while staying true to the values, founded a university where top managers attend courses such as 'What Makes Apple, Apple' and 'Communicating at Apple'. What do you do in these courses? You learn the entrepreneurial essence of Apple in a series of case studies that serve as a guide for future decisions; you study thousands of decisions made in Apple's history: how the decision was made to open the iPod to the Microsoft system, how the decision was made to launch the iPhone, why MobileMe was necessary, why the Apple TV remote control has three buttons, how to work in a functional organisation, how to communicate with colleagues, etc.

The role of Cook, first, and Ternus, today, is to adapt the entrepreneurial essence of Apple to the changing competitive environment. As in any good succession, it was the understanding of the competitive environment that led to the choice of Ternus.

Observers see two urgent challenges: geopolitics that threatens to break the 'designed in California, assembled in China' and the surrender in the development of a proprietary AI to rely on Gemini. familyandtrends believes these are COO not CEO issues.

The philosophy of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, ever since they were soldering circuits for the first personal computers, has been 'start with the consumer and work backwards towards the technology'. The real challenge is to define what will be the object we will use to interact with the new technological world that AI is creating. Will it still be a small pocket computer with a 'touch' screen to 'scroll', will it be a Star Trek-style pin, will it be glasses, will it be a robot butler? It will be the hardware and not the software that will define the best 'gadget'. That's why Ternus, 50 years old, head of hardware and adored by engineers more than software developers, is a common sense choice.

In a recent interview in the WSJ, Cook said: 'tomorrow is better than today... there may not be a more important philosophy in life... it's about recognising that you stand on the shoulders of your parents and all those who have gone before you, and then offering those who come after you a shoulder to stand on... [you need] to make sure you pass the baton to someone who can do better than you did.

In this statement by a CEO of a company listed in the unbridled 'short-terminism' of 'American-global' finance, there is much that Italy's patient entrepreneurial capitalism can learn.

* Lecturer in Family Business Strategy - University of Turin (bernardo.bertoldi@unito.it)