The rats are fleeing the sinking ship

Tim Cook is leaving Apple. He’s not the only CEO getting out while the getting is good.

“Data from consultancy Russell Reynolds found that in the first quarter of 2026, there were 77 incoming CEOs named across the 13 indexes tracked by the firm, which includes the S&P 500, FTSE 100, and Germany’s DAX 40, among others. This marked the highest first quarter total since at least 2018. In 2025, CEO departures hit a record high.” (Yahoo! Finance)

Financial observers have certainly enjoyed the bull market of the last several years, while those of us who make more of an effort to gauge reality have become more and more alarmed by what seems like a market unmoored from anything tangible. Massive data center buildouts, ever-increasing GPU sales, and a flood of AI software are all treated as evidence of genuine demand and barely tapped economic potential. But looking at all those things separately is like counting the beans without tasting the soup.

From here, the buildouts look impulsive and dick-measuring — and it matters that almost none of them are on schedule. The GPU sales are increasing, but where are they going? Who’s using them? How can something increase forever? As for all AI all the time, we do indeed seem to occupy separate realities. Not everyone hates AI as much as I do. But the numbers seem to back me up that most people don’t want it anywhere near as much as big tech wants us to want it.

Bubbles and crashes always look obvious in retrospect. There are a million reasons to explain them away while they’re happening (or a trillion reasons, in this case). And the reason it’s so hard to call them in real-time has less to do with the signs and symptoms than with timing. You may be right that a bubble is going to pop, but it matters a lot if it pops today, tomorrow, or next year. So when I look not at the numbers but at the world we’re living in, it could not be more obvious that something is deeply wrong. Then again, I’ve been thinking that for a while. The number still go up.

Seeing CEOs heading for the exits ought to be yet another in a line of red flags. Many of them are in the reality-making business. Most of the time they aren’t responding to market demand, rather they’re trying to create it. This can work for a while. Eventually the bill comes due — cf. “the Metaverse” — and it’s on to the next thing.

The question is, can they pivot out of this one? I don’t think so. And I think they finally know it. They’re on the hook for too much. All it’s going to take is one big contract to go unpaid and the chain reaction is going to be nuclear. So they’re securing the bag and hitting the bricks. I’d do the same thing.