This Reads Like a Sinking Ship (Apple)
I can be doom-and-gloom about Apple, but the recent departures read like a sinking ship: Dye to Meta, retirements of Adams, Jackson, Giannandrea and Williams, the loss of Maestri, talent bleeding to OpenAI, and now chip chief Johny Srouji 'seriously considering leaving.'
I know I can often be all doom-and-gloom when it comes to Apple, but wow, does this ever read like a sinking ship.
Earlier this week, it emerged that Meta had hired multiple Apple employees, including longtime Apple designer Alan Dye, while conducting its own recruiting blitz for AI and smartglasses development. Meanwhile, Apple announced the retirement of Senior Vice President and General Counsel Kate Adams, Lisa Jackson, Vice President of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives, and AI chief John Giannandrea. Earlier this year, Apple lost Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams, who is retiring, and Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri. There have also been rumors about Apple CEO Tim Cook retiring, with rumors suggesting he is preparing to leave his role as soon as next year.
An earlier paragraph in that MacRumors article indicates that Apple is "bleeding" employees to OpenAI. Without some hard data though, given the size of Apple and the popularity of OpenAI, I'm not inclined to read into that anything more than reasonable churn for a company of Apple's size. But who knows.
While I've long advocated (and still do) that the best move for Apple would be to replace Tim Cook with an engineer, there's something about seeing all of these people scurrying away that instills a sense of unease. Granted, it sounds like Dye's departure is a good thing for Apple (you have fun with that, Meta), Williams and Maestri have been around forever; their departure is significant.
