Bloomberg reports that Abidur Chowdhury, the industrial designer who introduced the iPhone Air during Apple’s September event, has left for an unnamed artificial intelligence startup. Here are the details.
Apple’s brain drain continues beyond its AI research division
Apple has been facing a relentless brain drain from its AI departments, with recent departures including top engineers and researchers who have defected to companies such as Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI.
But in the design division, Apple has also been suffering its own wave of departures, particularly to Jony Ive’s team at io, which was acquired earlier this year by OpenAI.
That includes Evans Hankey, who succeeded Ive as industrial design lead following his departure, Tang Tan, who spent more than 25 years working on design at Apple, Cyrus Daniel, who worked at Apple’s human interface design team for 15 years, Matt Theobald, who worked on manufacturing design at Apple for almost 20 years, Erik de Jong, who partly led the Apple Watch design team.
Now, as reported by Bloomberg, Chowdhury has also left Apple:
“Abidur Chowdhury, an industrial designer, recently departed the iPhone maker for an artificial intelligence startup, according to people familiar with the move. His exit made waves internally, given his rising profile within the design team, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private.”
Bloomberg’s report does not mention where Chowdhury moved to, and his LinkedIn profile still shows Apple as his current employer.
The report does mention, however, that although he “played a key role in developing the iPhone Air,” his departure is “unrelated to the debut of the phone.”
You can watch Chowdhury’s introduction of the iPhone Air below:
What’s your take on Chowdhury’s departure? Let us know in the comments.
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