Apple CEO John Ternus on most profound change at company over the last 20 years

Apple's approach to product development has shifted dramatically over the past two decades, moving away from designing hardware around off-the-shelf components and toward building proprietary technology entirely from the ground up. A video of John Ternus from 2023 has resurfaced online, in which the Apple CEO – who was senior vice president of hardware engineering at that time – is seen reflecting on one of the most significant shifts the iPhone maker has undergone over the last 20 years. In the 2023 interview with CNBC, Ternus pointed to the aggressive push toward in-house engineering as the defining strategic shift of the modern era. He said that above all proprietary technology, custom Apple silicon tops the list.“When I started, the way we tended to make products was we were using technologies from other companies and we were effectively building the product around that.