Demetri Maxim thought the Q&A was where he could really win investors over.

Then he realized: if you lose them during the pitch, they may never ask the questions that let you shine.

Hear what Demetri learned from pitching Nephrogen at Startup Battlefield on the latest Build Mode with Dr. Eike Gerhardt.

Tim Cook had the unenviable job of following Steve Jobs. Now John Ternus has to follow Cook, and he’s taking over an Apple that looks very different from the one Cook inherited.

Equity asks what Ternus’ product background could mean for Apple, and how he’ll balance hardware, services, and the company’s push into AI.

It’s officially the Ternus era at Apple.

Tim Cook stepped down as CEO this week, handing the company to former hardware chief John Ternus, whose first memo promised a “huge launch next week” — timing that puts Apple’s next iPhone event on his desk before he’s even settled in. Cook isn’t going far, though: he’s staying on as executive chairman, focused on the kind of policy relationships that recently turned something as small as a map label into a very public balancing act. All of which raises an obvious question: what does the Ternus era look like, and how much rope will shareholders give him to figure it out?

On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec and Sean O’Kane unpack what Ternus is walking into, why he may actually be better positioned to make progress on software than hardware in this new AI era, and more of the week’s news.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Chapters

00:00 Intro

1:12 Tim Cook steps down & John Ternus takes over as CEO

13:33 Nvidia’s spreading its AI bets

21:58 A big week for robotaxis: Tesla, Waymo, Zoox & Uber

29:09 a16z’s $1.1B “machine age” fund and $8.5B growth fund

32:39 GoPro’s $285M acquisition and pivot to AI/defense

36:34 Outro