Davis Wilson:

Tim Cook's Parting Message: Apple Is in the Hands of a Product Builder

On his last day as Apple CEO, Tim Cook offered an endorsement of his successor: John Ternus, the company's senior vice president of hardware engineering. In a memo to employees, Cook reminded staff that he's "not leaving Apple," just stepping away from the role of CEO.

Ternus' elevation to the top job suggests that Apple's next era will see a renewed focus on hardware and product execution. Under Ternus, Apple shipped a number of notable products, most recently, the new ultra-thin iPhone Air, the lower-cost MacBook Neo, and AirPods with hearing health features. He also led the hardware engineering team across Apple's full device lineup.

Cook's memo says little about Apple's future when it comes to AI, services, regulation, China, or the other challenges that lie ahead. Instead, Cook focuses on his gratitude for the opportunity to lead Apple and exalts the company's culture as ultimately what matters most.

"We share a belief that what we build matters and that we have both the opportunity and the responsibility to leave the world better than we found it," Cook wrote.

Cook will remain at Apple as executive chairman and will continue to manage political relationships, including those with President Trump and the Chinese government.

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Enrique Abeyta:

The $2T Question for Anthropic

Anthropic, the maker of the popular Claude AI models, is reportedly preparing to go public as soon as late September or early October.

Some investors are projecting a valuation upwards of $2 trillion when it finally goes public. At that price, Anthropic would pull off the largest IPO in history.

It all sounds so exciting. But didn't we just do this with SpaceX?

A few months ago, investors were clamoring to get into what would be the biggest IPO to date. But today, SpaceX trades double digits below its IPO price. It's a good reminder that there's usually no reason to rush into a blockbuster IPO on day one.

Anthropic may prove to be worth the wait. Its growth has been extraordinary. But a $2 trillion valuation comes with some enormous expectations.

Let Wall Street fight over the initial shares. Let the hype settle. Let insiders sell. Let the lockups expire. Let Anthropic report several quarters as a public company. Most importantly, let's see how its growth, margins and pricing hold up as Chinese, open-source and local models improve.

Maybe Anthropic eventually proves that Claude deserves one of the largest valuations on Earth. If it does, there will still be time to invest.

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Greg Guenthner:

Saylor's Back Buying Bitcoin

Strategy spent the summer doing something it had never done before – selling Bitcoin. Between May and August the company let go of 6,948 BTC for about $432.5 million, roughly $62,250 a coin.

On Monday it bought again for the first time since June, picking up 4,603 BTC for $369.7 million at an average of $80,318. That's a 29% higher price tag than it got for the coins it sold, and the company is still 2,345 BTC lighter than it was in the spring.

The reason for both moves is the same instrument – STRC. Strategy funds Bitcoin purchases by issuing stock and preferred shares, and when STRC slipped below its $100 par value in June, that funding route closed. The company built a Digital Credit Capital Framework authorizing up to $1.25 billion of Bitcoin sales to cover preferred dividends and buy back those shares at a discount. It sold Bitcoin because selling equity had gotten too expensive. Now MSTR has recovered enough that equity is the cheaper option again, so it went back to the old playbook.

Now we will wait and see if this was a one-off week or if this is Saylor's new normal headed into Q4 2026.

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