A specific type of wealth builds up covertly over decades in the form of restricted stock units that vest on a schedule that most people are unaware of until all of a sudden the quantity is enormous. Since entering Apple’s Cupertino campus in 2001 as a mechanical engineer just four years out of the University of Pennsylvania, John Ternus has been accumulating that kind of wealth. He didn’t appear to be wealthy. He started working for a company that was experiencing a revival that most people weren’t sure would last. Twenty-five years later, he is set to take over as…
Author: Sierra Foster
Sierra Foster
Born in Kansas City, Sierra Foster writes about politics and serves as Senior Editor at kbsd6.com. She was raised paying attention to this city, not just living in it. Sierra has a strong, deep connection to Kansas City, from the neighborhoods east of Troost to the discussions that take place in the city hall halls. Sierra, who is presently enrolled at the University of Kansas to pursue a degree in Political Science, applies the rigor of academic study to her journalism. She writes about politics in Missouri and Kansas as someone who genuinely cares about what happens to the people in these communities—the policies that impact them, the leaders who represent them, and the civic forces influencing their futures—rather than as an outsider watching from a distance. Her editorial coverage encompasses state-level policy, local government, and the national political currents that permeate bi-state regional life. Whether it's a city council vote or a Senate race, she has a special gift for turning complex policy language into writing that feels urgent, relatable, and worthwhile. Sierra seldom sits still off the page. She claims that playing soccer on a regular basis has sharpened her instincts for political reporting because of the sport's teamwork, strategy, and requirement to read a changing game in real time. She's probably somewhere in Kansas City with her friends when she's not writing or on the pitch, discovering new reasons to adore a city she already knows so well.
One version of Apple’s leadership transition narrative focuses almost solely on John Ternus taking over and Tim Cook resigning. That is not a complete version. A 62-year-old Haifa engineer who has been developing the company’s most important technology since 2008 was quietly given control of Apple’s entire hardware operation, including chips, sensors, cameras, batteries, displays, cellular modems, and the physical engineering of every product Apple produces, on the same day the company announced its biggest executive change in fifteen years. The elevation of Johny Srouji to Chief Hardware Officer is an important part of the bigger picture. It might be…
At the executive level, Apple tends to produce a very particular type of person: someone who can sit across from a journalist in a London café, answer every question without actually answering any of them, and still make a genuinely good impression. According to several accounts, that individual is John Ternus. He was courteous, amiable, and flawlessly delivered, according to a BBC technology editor who recently met him informally in the UK. She added, somewhat amused, that there wasn’t a single unguarded moment in the conversation. She pointed out that, even in private, Apple is remarkably adept at selecting precisely…
The A.J. Brown situation is exactly the type of NFL drama that builds gradually over the winter and then suddenly picks up speed in the spring. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, there are rumors that a trade involving Brown from the Philadelphia Eagles to the New England Patriots is not only feasible but also likely, with all the necessary structural components in place and talks anticipated to pick back up around June 1st. While he waits for clarity on his future, Brown has already made it clear that he will not be participating in the Eagles’ optional offseason workouts. That’s…
By all accounts, Sunday morning in Beverly Hills was a typical one. Patrick Muldoon and his partner, Miriam Rothbart, had spent time together at home. He headed to the shower. Rothbart discovered him unconscious on the bathroom floor when she went in search of him. His age was fifty-seven. A heart attack was the reason. Two days prior, he had shared on Instagram that he was thrilled to be involved in a new movie he was producing, Kockroach, which is being filmed in Australia and stars Chris Hemsworth. That particular detail is especially challenging. He was anticipating. Growing up, Patrick…
A certain type of Washington figure accumulates quiet competence across agencies for years, is confirmed by the Senate several times without making headlines, and never quite becomes well-known until the time comes when everyone else has burned out or been escorted out of the building, and all of a sudden they are in charge of the department. That person is Keith Sonderling. He took over as Acting Secretary of Labor on April 20th, taking over one of the more contentious areas of the Trump Cabinet after Lori Chavez-DeRemer resigned due to numerous misconduct investigations. By all standards, Sonderling is among…
There is a certain type of Washington story that begins with genuine promise and concludes with a social media post from a White House aide. This isn’t even a presidential statement, but rather a subtle announcement from the communications director that gets lost in the day’s commotion. On Monday, Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s term as Labor Secretary came to an end. Not much fanfare. No farewell to the Oval Office. Steven Cheung’s brief statement about her “phenomenal job” was followed by the announcement that she was leaving to pursue a position in the private sector. That phrase is doing a lot of…
The announcement was made on the morning of April 20th from Apple’s glass-and-steel campus in Cupertino, a structure that Tim Cook personally assisted in creating. It was delivered with the serene deliberateness that has always characterized him. Nothing dramatic. No abrupt resignation. No boardroom coup, no activist investors. A unanimous board vote, a meticulously crafted statement, and a succession that seemed to have taken years to prepare. In September, Allentown-born mechanical engineer John Ternus, who has worked at Apple for almost his whole career, will take over as the company’s executive chairman after Tim Cook steps down as CEO. Everyone…
Over the course of more than 20 years, Tim Heidecker has developed a career that is difficult to articulate. A comedian from Allentown, Pennsylvania, gained cult fame alongside Eric Wareheim with a show on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block that seemed to purposefully avoid being entertaining in any traditional sense. purposefully low-cost production. characters who lack logical consistency. Jokes that refused to admit they were jokes. Somehow, it worked—not for everyone, but profoundly for a certain type of person who realized that beneath its aggressively ugly exterior, the entire endeavor was quietly brilliant. Heidecker was recently appointed creative director of…
Depending on how much dark irony you can handle, there is something almost poetic about the possibility that America’s most well-known fake news source will take over Infowars, a platform based on the idea that nothing is what it seems. Not phony in the sense of Infowars. Fake as in purposefully, expertly, and creatively fake. A Texas judge has received a proposal from The Onion to temporarily take over Infowars’ digital properties, transforming one of the most divisive areas of the internet into what its new management refers to as a parody platform. The entire thing reads like a headline,…