Industry-high employee retention levels and executives holding their posts for decades are apparently going to be significant hurdles for incoming Apple CEO John Ternus.

There's been a trend in tech reporting that attempts to make every employment change from the top down a calamitous occasion. Whether it's a dozen engineers out of thousands leaving or executives being poached with insane pay packages, every departure is treated as a serious problem.

I'm still not entirely sure why.

The latest report from Bloomberg doubles down on a seemingly incorrect rumor of Johny Srouji seeking to join a different company in order to prop up other similar rumors. It's an odd example to rely upon considering it was only hours before Srouji firmly squashed the rumor.

To reiterate the absolute absurdity of it all, the original rumor was that 61-year-old Apple SVP Johny Srouji was going to go to a new company. Not retire, but leave Apple for somewhere else.

Apparently, the only way Tim Cook could convince this Apple Silicon legend to stay was with more pay and a new c-suite position. I'm not buying it.

It makes absolute sense that Apple is giving Srouji the Chief Hardware Officer position because he's earned it. Putting the guy that transformed Apple forever thanks to innovations in chipsets in charge of that and hardware engineering seems like the perfect move.

Also, the most important part of leadership is the ability to delegate, so of course Srouji immediately picked his new lieutenants. The one man wasn't going to oversee every aspect of Apple hardware on his own.

Someone might leave, probably

Confusingly, the report contradicts another while discussing Kate Bergeron. She is apparently upset that John Ternus didn't select her for head of hardware engineering instead of Tom Marieb.

Kate Bergeron with shoulder-length brown hair stands indoors in a modern, bright tech store, wearing a black top and teal pants, hands clasped, with wooden display tables and large glass windows behind her

Kate Bergeron is apparently unhappy with the new leadership picks. Image source: Apple

However, Srouji's memo, also leaked by Bloomberg, suggested that he had selected Tom Marieb. Whoever picked the new leadership, Bergeron is apparently upset, and that's the whole story there.

Thanks for the tip, random anonymous Apple employee that apparently knows these things and we have to just trust that.

Up next in the "secretly disgruntled person considering change" list is Mike Rockwell. He spearheaded Apple Vision Pro and is now in charge of Apple's AI efforts.

Apparently, though, he's also unhappy and considering stepping down to an advisory role in 2027 or leaving Apple entirely. However, the report clarifies he won't go anywhere until the Siri upgrades are complete.

"Longtime Apple engineer decides to leave after job is done" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, I guess.

Finally, we get to the end of this piece and the part that actually makes the most sense. It's an opinion shared in an interview by former procurement chief Tony Blevins.

Apple does have a significant battle ahead of it, and it is in the form of aging leadership.

As I've said before, Apple's leadership page is set to be completely different within the next five years. It started with Sabih Khan, and it will slowly flip each person until they're all fresh faces.

Let them retire

Sadly, Apple hasn't invented a time machine or discovered the fountain of youth. At some point, these executives that spent over 40 years at the company have to retire.

Man in blue shirt speaking in a grassy field before a modern circular office building, with large translucent faces of eight smiling colleagues floating in the sky behind him

Apple's leadership has gone through many changes and it will survive more

For whatever reason, this is painted with quite a lot of performative fearmongering. In recent years, we've seen multiple executive transitions go over smoothly at Apple, and it appears the CEO one will be among the smoothest.

But apparently we're all supposed to be worried.

Yes, it is going to be quite the job to replace the entirety of the executive staff that Steve Jobs handpicked. That is a daunting aspect that John Ternus will have to handle.

But these decisions don't take place in a vacuum. Each of these folks will have successors picked, and where Ternus needs to make a decision, he'll have Tim Cook, the other executive staff, and some of the best and brightest in business to help make the right choice.

There will surely be some bumps in the road, but let's not panic. Apple isn't a single person, and nothing is going to change, at least not quickly, no matter who has what job.