Tesla-Bound Chris Lattner May Have 'Felt Constrained' by Apple's Culture of Secrecy [Update: Denied]

[MacRumors]

Earlier this week, Swift creator and LLVM co-author Chris Lattner announced he will be leaving Apple later this month--he is headed to Tesla to lead its autopilot engineering team as Vice President of Autopilot Software.

Lattner, who oversaw Xcode among other tasks as director of Apple's Development Tools department, did not provide an explanation for his decision to leave the company, but "someone in Lattner's circle of developer friends" told Business Insider that Apple's culture of secrecy may have been a contributing factor.

"He always felt constrained at Apple in terms of what he could discuss publicly -- resorting to off-the-record chats, surprise presentations, and the like," the person told us. "Similarly, I know he was constrained in recruiting and other areas. Eventually I know that can really wear people down."

Lattner, who joined Apple in 2005, did not respond to the publication's requests for comment, so the exact reason for his decision remains uncertain. He previously said the decision "wasn't made lightly," and that he plans to remain an active member of the Swift Core Team despite his departure.

What we do know is that Swift now has a large community of developers working on the programming language since it became open source in late 2015, so it is very possible that Lattner felt he was in a good position to pursue a new opportunity without jeopardizing future development of the language he created in 2010.

Swift, designed to work with Apple's Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks, was developed for iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and Linux. The programming language was introduced at WWDC 2014 and is viewed as an alternative to Objective-C. Lattner said Apple's development of Swift will continue under Ted Kremenek.

Update: Lattner has shared an additional comment about Kremenek as spotted by Daring Fireball:

One thing that I don't think is fully appreciated by the community: Ted has been one of the quiet but incredible masterminds behind Swift (and Clang, and the Clang Static Analyzer) for many years. His approach and modesty has led many to misunderstand the fact that he has actually been running the Swift team for quite some time (misattributing it to me). While I'm super happy to continue to participate in the ongoing evolution and design of Swift, I'm clearly outmatched by the members of the Apple Swift team, and by Ted's leadership of the team. This is the time for me to graciously hand things over to folks who are far more qualified than me. Swift has an incredible future ahead of it, and I'm really thrilled to be small part of the force that helps guide its direction going forward.

Update 2: Lattner has since tweeted that his decision has "nothing to do with 'openness'," while noting the "friend" cited in the report is "either fabricated or speculating."

Article Link: Tesla-Bound Chris Lattner May Have 'Felt Constrained' by Apple's Culture of Secrecy [Update: Denied]

 

[thefredelement]

Nothing like friends who talk to the press on your behalf....

LLVM, Swift and now Tesla... I'm a fan of Chris and am excited to see what he'll do next. I hope the Swift 4 source compatibility promise he made at WWDC is kept.

 

[newyorksole]

Good looking guy

 

[itsamacthing]

Have heard from a friend inside Apple that Apple is having a real tough time hiring talent due to the internal privacy policies, so this is not surprising.

It is time for change..

 

[djcerla]

The "culture of secrecy".

Certainly the fact that the guy just completed a highly successful project and Tesla needed him for similarly ambitious goals has absolutely nothing to do with his decision.

 

[blacktape242]

"may have" lol

 

[iapplelove]

I would love to work under Elon Musk. He is the only visionary left

 

[djcerla]

Have heard from a friend inside Apple that Apple is having a real tough time hiring talent due to the internal privacy policies, so this is not surprising.

It is time for change..

AI team is now allowed to have normal academic relationships, including publishing papers.

But hardware... secrecy is needed unless you want Shenzen markets flooded with clones nine months before release.

 

[justperry]

I would love to work under Elon Musk. He is the only visionary left

There are plenty more yet we don't know them (yet).

Do you really think there is not one single visionary more out of the what...7 billion people living on this planet.

 

[ReneR]

that is what I call courage, …

Good luck at Tesla, I hope he may still work on LLVM; used in some many places, including Open Source 3D stack, Mesa, et al. http://www.t2-project.org/packages/mesa.html

 

[pat500000]

Secrecy is not needed. Who cares if other companies are gonna clone Apple stuff. They will always be generic. If Apple have confidence in their products, they won't need secrecy. If Apple works on quality rather than form, generic companies wouldn't compete with Apple.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Random people that claim to know him making random guesses at why he left.

 

[mark-vdw]

One quick thought - if Lattner would somehow decide to start using Swift within Tesla's Autopilot group, this move could mean serious things for Swift as an Open Source language, with 2 major companies using it in high-profile work. Not sure if using Swift for AI would make sense from a technical point of view, and not sure if Tesla would allow it, but just wanted to throw that out idea there.

 

[Naimfan]

Ya think?

Apple is in a different world and it would be good to see them adapt. The days of being able to roll out a secret "one more thing" are LONG gone.

Its obsession with secrecy hamstrings it in many ways.

 

[AngerDanger]

Good looking guy

Whose hair looks like it could've inspired the Swift logo.

 

[5684697]

I would love to work under Elon Musk. He is the only visionary left

Space X is in real trouble with little margin for error -

http://www.wsj.com/articles/exclusi...tions-for-nascent-internet-service-1484316455

 

[Born Again]

Unfortunately there is no Steve Jobs waiting to save the day.

Apple has peaked but what's next for consumers?

 

[TomMcIn]

Wait until Kia or some other Samesong like company gets a hand on what Telsa expected to be "Secret"

 

[calzon65]

Secrecy combined with unchecked arrogance will be their undoing if not careful ... absolute power corrupts absolutely.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

'Culture of secrecy'?

How much of what was last released by the company, did we already know about? How many 'Skunk Works' projects that they are working on do we know about? Unless they are working on a lot more secret stuff (a nude bomb?) I'm wondering what to make of that...

 

[Apple 26.2]

I hope Apple sticks to what made them great... Macs.

 

[boast]

Space X is in real trouble with little margin for error -

http://www.wsj.com/articles/exclusi...tions-for-nascent-internet-service-1484316455

A lot of those articles are for investors looking for quick money. You can find similar bad news for Tesla as well.

 

[iapplelove]

Space X is in real trouble with little margin for error -

http://www.wsj.com/articles/exclusi...tions-for-nascent-internet-service-1484316455

Trust me I know all about their issues. Doesn't mean he is not a visionary

 

[nt5672]

Ya think?

Apple is in a different world and it would be good to see them adapt. The days of being able to roll out a secret "one more thing" are LONG gone.

Its obsession with secrecy hamstrings it in many ways.

While I agree with you, I would say it is not "secrecy" that hamstrings things at Apple, its not being able to draw the correct line between needed secrecy and secrecy that hurts Apple in the long run.

 

[iapplelove]

There are plenty more yet we don't know them (yet).

Do you really think there is not one single visionary more out of the what...7 billion people living on this planet.

lol yet? That made me laugh. Obviously I meant right this minute, in the now..presently. There simply are no visionaries left in this world.

Eveything is for profit$

yes I understand one can come around again.