Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg (paywalled, alas):
Apple was quickly alarmed by OpenAI’s recruiting drive, which
included poaching senior hardware and design leaders and ravaging
several teams across its engineering organizations. The practice
continued as recently as June, when OpenAI lured away Apple’s
smart glasses chief. That executive, Paul Meade, was quickly
shown the door at Apple and not given the opportunity to stay on
for a transition period, according to people with knowledge of
the matter.
Regarding Tang Tan, who is at the center of Apple’s lawsuit:
Tan was famous for taking risks at Apple and “flying very close to
the sun” during his 25-year career, according to someone who
worked with him. “Tang is well known for moving fast, playing fast
and loose and breaking things,” said the person, who asked not to
be identified while discussing former colleagues.
Gurman broke the story of Meade leaving Apple for OpenAI on June 26, writing then:
Meade’s departure is a blow to the iPhone maker. He has led
hardware engineering for the Vision Pro headset — once seen as
Apple’s next major computing platform — for seven years. Apple
and OpenAI spokespeople declined to comment. He has also been
responsible for the development of display-free Apple smart
glasses meant to vault the company into the AI wearables space
next year and compete with a growing category pioneered by Meta
Platforms Inc.
