Overview
- Bloomberg reported June 26 that Paul Meade, Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering for the Vision Products Group, plans to leave Apple next week to join OpenAI’s hardware unit.
- Meade led hardware engineering for the Vision Pro and has spent more than a decade at Apple, with experience solving sensor, thermal management, battery and miniaturization challenges for headsets and glasses.
- Apple’s internal reorganization tied to John Ternus’s succession and Johny Srouji’s new chief hardware role is reported to have changed reporting lines and is cited by sources as a factor in Meade’s decision.
- Fletcher Rothkopf, Meade’s longtime deputy who runs product design for Vision Pro and smart glasses, is reported to assume many of Meade’s responsibilities at Apple.
- The hire follows OpenAI’s acquisition of Jony Ive’s io and a wider recruiting push of former Apple designers and engineers, a pattern that could accelerate OpenAI device development while raising retention pressure on Apple and potentially affecting Apple’s smart‑glasses timeline as previously reported.