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Apple Intelligence team sees leadership departure
Apple’s internal leadership restructuring around AI and ML continues after Meta’s industry-wide poaching program snipes a top executive from the Apple Intelligence team.
Meta has been struggling to do anything impactful with its AI platform. It’s another significant dud after the dramatic name change in pursuit of the still-fictional metaverse, and now the company is throwing money at the problem in hopes of catching up with the AI industry.
Apple is the latest company affected by industry-wide poaching efforts from Meta. According to Bloomberg, the head of Apple’s foundation models team, Ruoming Pang, has been poached by Meta with a significant pay package.
The Foundation Model team will now be run by Zhifeng Chen, with multiple managers reporting to them. New managers in this structure allegedly include Chong Wang, Zirui Wang, Chung-Cheng Chiu, and Guoli Yin.
Apple’s alleged brain drain
The language of the article has the usual breathless excitement of yet another Apple executive departure — painting a picture of woe and failure within the company. However, beyond the poaching from Meta via a pay package worth tens of millions of dollars per year, there’s little more than hearsay from anonymous tipsters and speculation on the environment at Apple.
There’s a suggestion that Pang’s departure could be a sign that Apple’s AI teams could be on the brink of crumbling. People familiar with the matter suggest that Apple employees have even discussed leaving Apple at an indeterminate time for Meta or elsewhere.
The language around a report on Tom Gunter’s departure was similar. There’s a suggestion that Apple has an AI brain drain that it can’t salvage after repeated blunders.
Meta is allegedly paying significantly more to AI engineers versus Apple. That, and there are rumors from more anonymous folk about disgruntled employees within the company.
Apple Intelligence is used across iOS and other platforms
Apparently, Apple’s discussions with Anthropic and OpenAI about bringing private and secure versions of their models to Private Cloud Compute sparked frustration within the company. There’s some rumor, however unlikely, that Apple would even abandon Apple Intelligence as a Siri backend, which Pang’s team was working on.
As usual, it’s the trademark doom cycle for Apple. Every departure, poaching, and disgruntled employee is somehow a sign of some kind of rot that’s killing the fruit instead of the turnover expected at big companies.
Don’t fall into the doom cycle
The reality is that there are thousands of employees at these tech companies. They’re people with bills to pay, goals, hopes, and frustrations like everyone else.
Apple is a terribly difficult environment to work in. While rewarding, it’s secretive, and Apple has been known to not pay as much as competitors, hoping the merit of working for Apple is enough draw.
Engineers, especially in the AI space, like having their work published. It’s valuable and gives them bargaining powers in the dynamic workspace.
Apple Intelligence isn’t running the same AI race
Meta’s pursuit of another possibly fictional technology, the so-called “AI Superintelligence,” is a boon for engineers looking to rake in some well-deserved cash and recognition for their work. While Pang has been with Apple since 2022, previously at Alphabet, the company will surely push on without him and whoever else decides to take Meta’s massive offers.
Apple’s approach to AI has been different from its competitors so far. Inwardly, there’s surely some frustration at the reporting on how terrible Apple Intelligence apparently is, but outwardly, the company continues to push the narrative that it’s running a different race.
While Apple Intelligence improves with time, inevitably catching up with the other AI companies that have hit a reasoning ceiling, the company is giving users an abundance of options. Apple’s power in AI and all technology isn’t bound to a single entity within the company or a single technology like AI — it’s bound to the ecosystem of products and its ability to provide access to private and secure technologies.
So, instead of getting on the doom cycle, let’s celebrate the potential of what’s going on with Apple and AI. Soon, we could get contextual Apple Intelligence, Siri powered by an LLM backend, and the ability to use third-party models via Private Cloud Compute.
