Investor Jason: Apple Should Focus on Major Acquisitions and Create a Shopping List
Investor Jason Calacanis has provided a shopping list to Apple CEO John Ternus: Perplexity to enhance search and default large models, WisprFlow for voice assistants, Superhuman for native office and email with a Grammarly-style keyboard integrated into phones, Exo Labs for local open-source models, Robinhood for finance (he notes he is not selling), GoAI for enterprise intelligence, DigitalOcean to compete with Amazon Cloud, Disney is "obvious," and DoorDash and Uber represent a bold leap into real-world logistics. He wrote: spend the ammunition on major fluctuations; winning one deal is enough.
The list targets the capital policy after Cook's succession. Ternus took over on September 1, and analysts from Bank of America and others believe his risk appetite is higher than his predecessor's. Apple has abandoned its net cash neutrality target, allowing room for R&D, capital expenditures, and larger acquisitions. The cash and securities on hand remain at the hundred billion dollar level, with available cash reported to exceed $39 billion. The Siri overhaul still partially relies on Google's Gemini, and self-developed server chips are also inquiring about acquiring semiconductor startups. The companies on the list are not for sale: Robinhood is explicitly not; Disney's size would trigger antitrust concerns; cloud and logistics would push Apple beyond device services into off-balance-sheet fulfillment.
Who is buying and who is selling: the narrative is that the new leader must appear willing to spend money, while the selling is the inertia of Cook's era, which focused on buybacks to absorb cash. The event is driven by investors' menu-driven approach, and funds have not yet left Apple's balance sheet. Beneficiaries are the named companies, which can leverage this for storytelling in valuations, while those under pressure are shareholders hoping for continued high buyback ratios. A menu is not a letter of intent; it tells the market that the purpose of the war chest is to be spent.
The public post is not an Apple announcement, nor has any of the named companies confirmed contact.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
After the leadership change at Apple, the external favorite activity is to spend money on behalf of the new CEO. Calacanis has written the gaps as a shopping cart: search, voice, office, local models, finance, cloud, content, logistics. Each item corresponds to an area where Apple is said to be lagging. The longer the menu, the more it indicates that Cook left behind a profit machine, not an AI operating system.
The capital path is still constrained by antitrust and integration capabilities. Abandoning net cash neutrality only allows for cash retention, not for buying Disney. Perplexity and the voice layer are closer to "supplementing Siri," DigitalOcean is a cloud dream, and delivery and transportation turn hardware users into fulfillment networks. The ones that can truly enter the boardroom are more likely to be mid-sized targets in chips and assistants, rather than turning Apple into the second Amazon.
Comparisons can be made to Microsoft's acquisitions of Nuance and Activision, Google's purchases of Looker and Waze, and Meta's acquisitions in voice and reality layers. Historically, Apple has made few large acquisitions, with Beats being nearly the upper limit of memory. The industry phase has shifted from a peak in buybacks to a necessity to prove investment. Whoever can deliver a clear AI acquisition in the first year can turn the "Ternus Doctrine" from a speech into capital allocation.
Structural judgments belong to the transfer of pricing power. The mechanism is: the pricing power of device profits is based on installations, while the pricing power of AI entry is based on default assistants. Buying search and voice is buying default rights; buying cloud and logistics is acquiring a gross profit structure that Apple has never operated. The honesty of the menu lies in acknowledging that self-development is behind schedule, while the exaggeration lies in treating the war chest as an unlimited mandate.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
The new CEO's first assignment is often a shopping list written by others.
Once cash neutrality is canceled, the acquisition narrative automatically begins.
What is lacking is a default entry, not another higher-margin phone.