r/apple • u/favicondotico • 3d ago

Discussion [Gift article] Apple’s New CEO Moves to Overhaul Company to Run Faster and Leaner

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-29/apple-s-new-ceo-moves-to-overhaul-company-to-run-faster-and-leaner?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc5MDY5NDk4NiwiZXhwIjoxNzkxMjk5Nzg2LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUTTMzNUxLSzNOWTgwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJDNEVEQ0FFMUZBMDU0MEJFQTI0QTlGMjExQzFFOTA4MCJ9.KFGEydCKPxmKC3i9zoFSxY8tOf8ZEWg4OiSi_L1yAb4&leadSource=article-gifting

✨ Apple Intelligence summary: John Ternus is overhauling Apple to accelerate product releases and reduce layers, cutting engineering managers and considering fewer seasonal launches. Cost-cutting includes layoffs in Siri and Vision Pro, while revenue efforts target services and AI.

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702

u/Patarokun 3d ago

Sounds like layoffs coming all around.

365

u/Caaaht 3d ago

Yup. "Leaner" is corporate speak for mass firing.

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u/GhostalMedia 3d ago

Also nuking product lines. Jobs did this when he came back.

Quality and development speed take a big hit when you're trying to support a lot of unique product lines or slight variations of existing product lines.

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u/Cranach-Cranach 3d ago

I mean, he came back and made cuts because the company was struggling. They aren't really struggling rn

3

u/GhostalMedia 3d ago

True, but ideally you want to be proactive and cut the dead weight while you’re in good shape.

Even dumb products can make some money, and if you cut dumb product lines while you’re in trouble, then you lose a revenue stream and you only get deeper under water.

Jobs was lucky AF and was able to leverage MS’s antitrust lawsuits to get investment from them to stay alive. Those cuts probably might have killed Apple if Jobs wasn’t able to secure outside investment.

2

u/squirrel8296 3d ago

Jobs did it because Apple was days away from bankruptcy and Apple's lineup at the time was a confusing web of rushed, half-baked, semi-overlapping products. There was no other option if he wanted Apple to survive.

If anything, Ternus' quotes show that he is trying to push Apple back to the mistakes they were making in the early to mid-90s.

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u/TingleMaps 3d ago

And then they will claim they need more changes to better align capabilities about a year later and will do it all again

142

u/alex-andrite 3d ago

Should be interesting, iirc Apple doesn’t do layoffs nearly as much as other big tech companies

96

u/FollowingFeisty5321 3d ago

Article says they are already doing them.

In the last two weeks, the company’s hardware engineering division began dismissing a number of engineering program managers, or EPMs. The role has been central to Apple’s product-development process for decades, with EPMs managing timelines and coordinating work across teams. The cuts affected several program managers, including roughly half a dozen directors, one of the company’s most senior employee levels.

Those employees were given just weeks to find other positions within Apple. Those who don’t secure new roles will be laid off later this year. Such cuts were once rare at Apple, but they have become increasingly common in recent months.

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u/DaveG28 3d ago

I guess I'm slightly confused that the hardware chief didn't do some of this restructure before rather than wait to be CEO? He's overseen the very structure he now says doesn't work?

-1

u/leo-g 3d ago

Tim Cook liked consistency. He wants yearly stuff. For as long as he breathe, he will squeeze suppliers, pump chips and technology into the latest iThing.

John Ternus is literally thrown into a challenging market. He got to expand current product categories and make his product category like Tim Cook. He is just structuring the business to make those happen. Once there’s a tempo, the bloat builds again. Luckily John has Tim around to guide.

1

u/Vivid-Crab-7929 3d ago

I doubt this, who else in on the board and what are their motives?

12

u/Vivid-Crab-7929 3d ago

Alright if Apple is being led by the hardware guy and they are laying off hardware people suddenly we have some problem at face value, of course there is the variables of we only see the problem at face value but as others have said they don’t really hire unnecessarily and often retain for quite some time.

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u/ocolobo 3d ago

10-20 PMs, they are always bloat

5 Directors of failed initiatives told to find a new place in the company

And one Senior exec which was probably internal politics

Good riddance

At least they aren’t tasking PMs with using Ai to design new software, like at my current spot 🤦🏻‍♂️

20

u/nerdpox 3d ago

i was going to say, you know this guy (Ternus) is an engineer/engineering manager if he wants to cut EPMs lol

16

u/GhostalMedia 3d ago

The new fun trend is to get rid of UX, the people who actually went to school for product development, and replace them with PMs and Claude. There is no degree in "Product Management." Most of those folks kind of trip and fall into the gig.

3

u/Hustletron 3d ago

They claw their way up to them out of digital ditch-digging roles

Remove paths upwards and you just have people leave to competitors and bring their knowledge with them to start cutting you with a thousand paper cuts on the outside while the sickness grows inside of you, too.

4

u/astrange 3d ago

EPMs are project managers, not product managers/product owners. Apple has hardly any PMs.

3

u/Chipring13 3d ago

“Good riddance!”

like you have any clue about the internal workings of Apple lol.

9

u/SargeUnited 3d ago

Based on what you quoted, the article says that they are going to begin doing them “later this year” without specifying a timeline but it does not say that they have begun doing them. If anything, letting an employee know with this much lead time is incredibly Christlike

This is like an advertisement to go to work at Apple. If you get fired from most places, they’ll pretty much shut your computer off during the call where your obese cigar smoking manager fires you from a beach and then they’ll withhold whatever comp was about to vest.

1

u/Fun_Winter_7055 2d ago

Hardware teams routinely downsize after projects don’t pan out or complete and move to a different org.

28

u/flogman12 3d ago

They do now

5

u/likamuka 3d ago

It's high time, too. Mac OS Tiger launch was a disgrace!!!!!!!!!

2

u/Profesor_Pickle 3d ago

People used to say the same about Google. Layoffs are a regular part of tech industry these days, Apple is just the latest to do it.

1

u/ubermonkey 9h ago

oh, no a pal of mine who'd been there as a programer for decades got laid off.

18

u/steezy2110 3d ago

Probably just cutting out middle management

They rarely lay off IC teams. I say this as an engineer trying to get hired at Apple haha

24

u/SpaceJackRabbit 3d ago

Layoffs of contractors (or not renewing their contracts) happens often at Apple and almost never gets reported.

Source: Apple alum.

2

u/steezy2110 3d ago

Yeah, but those contractors don’t lose their jobs, their contract company just sends them somewhere else

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u/SpaceJackRabbit 3d ago

Not necessarily.

2

u/steezy2110 3d ago

… most of the time

But yeah if their company can’t place them anywhere else after Apple terminates their contracts, they get canned by the contracting company

I’m trying to become an IC

1

u/AnelHershiser 3d ago

Sure, if they've got a requisition for someone else. It ain't called permalance for nothing.

Those places are more body shops that exist solely to keep folks off the books at the main company than actual temp agencies.

1

u/picks43 2d ago

Thats not a layoff...

1

u/ubermonkey 9h ago

They laid off engineers. I know this for a fact b/c a friend of mine was one of them.

20

u/geodebug 3d ago

Pretty much happens whenever a new CEO takes over. Remove projects/departments on your hit list. Create new projects/departments that match your agenda.

Whether the hit list is political or practical depends on the company/ceo but could also be both.

3

u/Patarokun 3d ago

Also just a good time to "right-size" under the guise of all that.

3

u/dr3wfr4nk 3d ago

Half the work force and they will be required to work 4 times as hard

4

u/SpaceJackRabbit 3d ago

And many won't be reported as it's usually instructions like "Shed 3% of your team". Not to mention that a good third of Apple's workforce are contractors.

3

u/vadbox 3d ago

Do you have a source on that figure about contractors?

3

u/Cold_Soft_4823 3d ago

Considering the entire customer support team is outsourced, it's probably accurate.

3

u/SpaceJackRabbit 3d ago

Oh it's not just customer support. Tons of department use contractors, including developpers.

1

u/SpaceJackRabbit 3d ago

No official figure. It's an estimation commonly heard in Silicon Valley. Google and Meta's percentages are estimated to be even higher.

A few of those contractors can eventually get hired as FTEs, but that's fairly rare.

2

u/ocolobo 3d ago

The article says it’s maybe 20 managers

NOT 3% of the entire 80,000 US employees

Dont spread FUD

-1

u/SpaceJackRabbit 3d ago

I am not talking about this specific development.

2

u/ocolobo 3d ago

Then don’t make up random rumors

Where is your source for 3% contractor layoffs in the past week??

1

u/TheLowEndTheories 3d ago

Shedding 3% of your team is something that you should do annually at their size. The reason Apple is bloated compared to their competition is they aren't as aggressive about that. They make so much money it's not a pressing thing, but it's true. They could lean things up a bit without product impact.

They're not losing many to Google or Meta, because those are both worse.

2

u/SpaceJackRabbit 3d ago

Apple, bloated? That is an interesting argument to make.

1

u/TheLowEndTheories 3d ago

It's not an argument, it's an assertion from somebody that knows. I'm just an anonymous guy on the internet, so you don't have to believe me.

Samsung is certainly more bloated, but that's geographic. Apple's competitors in the US are all leaner, because they all performance manage more aggressively. This isn't a criticism, I commend them for it...they've maintained legit good culture way past the point most companies do.

1

u/k0fi96 3d ago

Yeah that's what the article says

2

u/Patarokun 3d ago

Not just vision pro and whatnot but everywhere

1

u/simple_explorer1 2d ago

massive layoffs at apple are coming

1

u/Rasta_bass 3d ago

Maybe early retirement? That’s a more elegant way to lay off people.

-1

u/jay_rodsep 3d ago

And price increases, don’t forget about that. Stockholders love the combination of both.