Apple Silicon Chief Johny Srouji Squashes Exit Rumors
Johny Srouji at Scary Fast Event [Apple]
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Apple’s executive offices have started to feel like a set of revolving doors lately, but thankfully, at least one rumored departure appears to have been patently untrue.
Over the past week, Apple has officially announced the retirement of AI chief John Giannandrea, VP of environmental policy Lisa Jackson, and general counsel Kate Adams. News also broke that software design VP Alan Dye was leaving for Meta, where he’ll become the social media company’s chief design officer.
While that already made for a whirlwind week, it also followed the retirement of Jeff Williams, Apple’s long-time chief operating officer and head of watch, fitness, and health. Williams departed in stages, handing over the COO reins to Sabih Khan in June and then divvying up the rest of his portfolio to other divisions in October before walking out the door for the last time in November.
Then there’s the scuttlebutt around Apple CEO Tim Cook, who turned 65 last month. Combined with discussion on Apple’s detailed succession plans — and some far-out speculation that he could run for political office — this fuelled rumors that the chief executive might hang up his laurels in 2026.
That notion was bolstered by a report in the Financial Times, a reputable source that’s not often given to speculative whimsy. However, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman presented a counterpoint, leaving the matter of Cook’s future somewhat up in the air. Still, it’s not really a question of “if” but “when” the CEO will hand over the reins to a successor.
As is usually the case, what’s being discussed behind the scenes is often more interesting than the official announcements — especially since most of these were the kind of housekeeping that wasn’t all that surprising. Earlier this fall, Gurman said that Lisa Jackson was considering retirement and Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior VP of hardware technologies, was “evaluating his future at the tech giant.”
Gurman’s comments on Jackson tended to be prescient, if not entirely surprising. That led many to believe his prediction on Srouji would be on the money — especially since he doubled down on it on Saturday:
Johny Srouji — senior vice president of hardware technologies and one of Apple’s most respected executives — recently told Cook that he is seriously considering leaving in the near future, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Srouji, the architect of Apple’s prized in-house chips effort, has informed colleagues that he intends to join another company if he ultimately departs.
Mark Gurman
However, it seems Srouji wasn’t about to let that one go unchallenged. In a response that was so fast we almost got whiplash (at least relative to how Apple usually rolls), Srouji sent a memo to his staff making it clear that he has no plans to leave:
I know you’ve been reading all kind of rumors and speculations about my future at Apple, and I feel that you need to hear from me directly. I love my team, and I love my job at Apple, and I don’t plan on leaving anytime soon.
Johny Srouji, in an internal memo to staff (via Bloomberg)
The “internal” memo was clearly intended to find its way to the press, and both CNBC and Bloomberg ran with it. Some, like John Gruber, suggested that this was bad reporting on Gurman’s part — or at least bad sourcing — possibly even going so far as to be a poisonous seed sown by competitors.
However, in sharing the memo, Gurman notes that sources claimed Cook “had been working aggressively to retain Srouji,” including offering “a substantial pay package and the potential of more responsibility down the road.” Still, if that’s true, either Srouji was won over very quickly, or Saturday’s Bloomberg report was stale, at best.
We may never know for sure whether Srouji was seriously considering leaving, simply negotiating for a better package, or if these rumors were truly overblown or even made up out of whole cloth. Still, it’s reassuring to see that Srouji isn’t going anywhere. Of all the retirements and shifts over the past several months, his might have had the greatest long-term impact on the company. Apple’s powerful M-series chips and new C1/N1 communications chips are undoubtedly a team effort, but Srouji is the man who led that team.
