Report sheds light on who at Apple has been departing for OpenAI – 9to5Mac

A few days ago, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that OpenAI was poaching Apple hardware engineers “left and right”. Now, a new WSJ piece offers a closer look at some of these departures.

Audio, watch design, and robotics among the areas cited

Despite the high-profile departures of Jeff Williams, Alan Dye, and John Giannandrea taking most of the spotlight in recent weeks, Apple has been dealing with a far broader wave of losses, particularly to Meta and OpenAI.

Here’s Mark Gurman on his Power On newsletter, a few weeks ago:

“OpenAI is poaching left and right from Apple’s hardware engineering group. It’s well known that LoveFrom — Jony Ive’s post-Apple design studio — is largely staffed by talent hired from his former employer. That dynamic has turned Apple’s design team into a revolving door in recent years. But now OpenAI’s $6 billion acquisition of Ive’s previously secret AI startup, io, means that Apple’s hardware engineering group is experiencing a wave of defections as well.”

And

“I’m told that in just the past month, OpenAI has hired more than 40 people for its devices group — with many of those engineers coming directly from the iPhone maker.”

Now, a new report by The Wall Street Journal adds a bit more detail on the scope of these departures:

“Dozens of Apple engineers and designers with expertise in audio, watch design, robotics and more have decamped to OpenAI in recent months, according to a review of LinkedIn profiles.”

Although not surprising, given the little that has already been revealed about io’s upcoming products, the report offers another data point about what those products may actually be.

Sam Altman and Jony Ive have already said their goal is to offer a line of products rather than a single AI device, and told the courts that their first device isn’t a wearable.

OpenAI has also reportedly been recruiting “a number of researchers with expertise in developing AI algorithms for controlling humanoid and other types of robots,” so it’s possible that not all of these deflections are related to io.

Whatever the case may be, it is becoming increasingly clear that Apple’s challenges in retaining talent to behind the fields of research and engineering, when it comes to competing companies in the AI field.

Whether the recent change of guard at the top of Apple’s AI efforts will be enough to slow this brain drain, at least in the medium term, remains to be seen.

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