Paul Meade, Apple’s Vision Pro chief, is leaving to build OpenAI’s devices. It is the most senior Apple defection yet, and it points the AI hardware talent war straight at Cupertino.
Apple does not lose vice presidents to rivals. That is the unwritten rule, and for years it held. Designers slipped away to Jony Ive’s orbit, and the odd executive crossed to Meta, but the engineering core stayed put. On 26 June, that rule broke at the top.
Paul Meade, the Apple vice president who runs the Vision Pro headset and the company’s smart glasses programme, is leaving for OpenAI. The scoop came from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, and both The Information and TechCrunch matched it the next day. Apple and OpenAI declined to comment.
Meade will leave Apple by next week, Gurman reported, then join OpenAI’s hardware unit. There he will work on the company’s planned family of AI-powered devices. Apple shares pared their gains on the news, trading up about 2%.
The loss stings because of who Meade is. He joined Apple in 2010, managed early iPad work, then ran iPhone program management. He moved to the Vision Products Group in 2017 and has led Vision Pro hardware engineering for seven years. His deputy, Fletcher Rothkopf, picks up much of the work.
