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What will Apple’s John Ternus era look like? | Equity Podcast

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…

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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

Science & Technology

Startup Battlefield: Health Tech & Life Sciences Pitches | Disrupt 2026

Founders from around the world pitch expert judges and compete for the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Each team gets six minutes to pitch and six minutes of Q&A with judges Dr. V. Agrawal (ODDBIRD VC), Andrew Brackin (Gradient), Nell Daly (Revenge Capital), James Joaquin (Obvious Ventures), and Miloni Madan Presler (IVP). This cohort’s competitors…

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Founders from around the world pitch expert judges and compete for the Startup Battlefield Cup and $100,000. Each team gets six minutes to pitch and six minutes of Q&A with judges Dr. V. Agrawal (ODDBIRD VC), Andrew Brackin (Gradient), Nell Daly (Revenge Capital), James Joaquin (Obvious Ventures), and Miloni Madan Presler (IVP).

This cohort’s competitors include…

Mosqitter: Detecting and preventing mosquito-borne disease spread with real-time disease intelligence platforms that turn sensor networks into early warning systems for national health agencies.

Hiyd AI: Delivering proactive health insights by combining sleep, movement, and nutrition data through an ultra-slim, discreet wearable tracker and AI app.

TimeTeller GmbH: Measuring people’s biological clocks to determine optimal treatment timing through molecular diagnostics and AI, improving efficacy and reducing side effects.

NTangible: Helping coaches and front offices make smarter recruiting decisions by quantifying how athletes perform under pressure with a validated cognitive score.

Intero Biosystems: Accelerating drug development by producing miniature human organs that enable pharma companies to identify safer, more effective medications while reducing clinical trial costs.

#TechCrunchDisrupt2026

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Science & Technology

Flock CEO Garrett Langley on Public Backlash, Surveillance Expansion | Disrupt 2026

Flock Safety sits at the intersection of an increasingly intense debate around the spread of surviellance technology, AI, and who’s using all of that information and to what ends. Founder and CEO Garrett Langley spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 to defend his stance that Flock is a net positive in the face of concerns about…

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Flock Safety sits at the intersection of an increasingly intense debate around the spread of surviellance technology, AI, and who’s using all of that information and to what ends. Founder and CEO Garrett Langley spoke at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 to defend his stance that Flock is a net positive in the face of concerns about its work monitoring communities, cities, and enabling data sharing across law enforcement agencies.

As a sign of that backlash, as Langley spoke on stage, a protest against Flock was taking place outside of Moscone West in San Francisco.

#TechCrunchDisrupt2026

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Satya Nadella’s ‘emergency brake’ and the race to secure AI agents | Disrupt 2026

TechCrunch’s Equity podcast team took over the Builders Stage Tuesday morning to tackle a growing challenge for the AI industry: What happens when AI agents go off-script, and who’s responsible for keeping them in check? Recent incidents, from Anthropic pulling internal evaluations off the live internet after agents misbehaved to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calling…

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TechCrunch’s Equity podcast team took over the Builders Stage Tuesday morning to tackle a growing challenge for the AI industry: What happens when AI agents go off-script, and who’s responsible for keeping them in check?

Recent incidents, from Anthropic pulling internal evaluations off the live internet after agents misbehaved to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calling for an “emergency brake” on AI models, have brought agent security into focus. The Equity team unpacked whether the problem calls for better engineering, new regulation, or both, and why startups are raising millions to secure AI agents.
#TechCrunchDisrupt2026

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