Apple AI Talent Exodus Intensifies as Key Researchers Defect to Meta and Others

Apple has been experiencing a troubling trend in its artificial intelligence (AI) division, with multiple high-profile researchers and engineers leaving for competing firms such as Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and Cohere. Since the beginning of the year, approximately a dozen departures have been reported, raising concerns over the sustainability of Apple’s AI development efforts [1]. Meta, in particular, has emerged as a formidable rival in the talent war, actively recruiting members from Apple’s Foundation Models (AFM) team, which is central to the development of AI technologies like Siri [1].

The most recent departure includes Bowen Zhang, a key multimodal AI researcher at Apple, who has reportedly joined Meta’s superintelligence team [1]. Zhang’s exit is significant given his role in building the foundational technology for Apple’s AI platform [1]. This is not an isolated incident. Earlier in the month, Ruoming Pang, the former leader of the AFM team, left Apple for Meta, reportedly in exchange for a compensation package exceeding $200 million [1]. Pang’s departure has caused internal uncertainty, as he played a crucial role in defining the department’s strategic direction [1].

Further losses include senior LLM researcher Tom Gunter and engineer Mark Lee, both of whom have joined Meta [1]. Floris Weers, another AFM team member, recently left for a start-up [1]. These departures have triggered concern within the team, with reports indicating that additional engineers are actively seeking new opportunities elsewhere [1].

In response, Apple has reportedly begun offering marginal pay raises to AFM staff in an attempt to retain talent [1]. However, these increases are far below the compensation levels offered by competing firms [1]. The AFM team, composed of several dozen researchers and engineers across California and New York, faces the real risk of being dismantled if the trend continues [1].

Apple’s internal challenges extend beyond the AFM team. Recently, the company was on the verge of losing the team behind MLX, its open-source machine learning framework tailored for Apple Silicon [1]. The potential loss of this team would have significantly set back Apple’s vision of running advanced AI models efficiently on its own hardware [1]. Although the team ultimately remained, the incident revealed deepening dissatisfaction and a lack of confidence in leadership [1].

Tim Cook’s leadership faces mounting pressure as he seeks to retain key contributors. Despite generous offers and promises of meaningful projects, Apple continues to struggle in maintaining team cohesion and morale [1]. If the company fails to address these issues, it risks falling further behind in the global AI race [1].

Source: [1] https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/689485f8c4aa384a36ed218d/