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Apple Car Project Loses Three Key Engineers

ACHD said:
You dont get high profile engineers and other lower ranking engineers leaving a company ENTIRELY if everything was going smooth. Very likely they feel the project is dead in the water or the company is choosing to stop work at a higher level and some signs were given and people were leaving.

High profile engineers only leave over treatment, culture, internal disputes, project pending cancelation, or project is "dead in the water" but alive on paper.
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Professionals in the tech industry, including all the so called FAANG and other tier 1 companies, change jobs every two years on average despite four year vesting schedules. Tech professionals are rewarded mostly by restricted stock not base salary and this is just the way the math works out. Add in the recent job market meltup for tech labor and it's clear why you want to reset your comp to market often regardless of how well the company is doing. These headlines conveniently leave out this fact. The articles also imply that a few "key" tech people will make a massive difference to the project. It doesn't work that way. The strength of a tech project is comprised of thousands of small things done by thousands of people you never read about. It's not dependent on some secret heavenly wisdom from a few gurus. The head of Google AI moved to Apple a while ago. Have you noticed any changes to Siri ? Has Google AI become dumb ? "Key Chip Engineers Join Nuvia" yet Apple silicon isn't doomed but dominating the industry. Jony Ive left Apple yet product design hasn't crumbled. In fact he seemed to have taken the butterfly keyboard and Touch Bar with him.
 
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Cosmosent said:
They should have focused on an Apple Race Car first !

1.) Hydraulic-assit Power Steering

2.) curb weight < 3300 lbs

3.) 50/50 weight distribution

4.) 3.6-liter square-design inline-6 NA ICE w/ an 8K RPM Redline

(300 hp @ 6250, 300 lb-ft @ 2750)

5.) 6-speed manual transmission

6.) custom Lightweight Trailer Hitch, for hooking up an AirStream :)

If Apple, OR really anyone, made a Sedan version of it, & priced it $20K USD above the Model 3, Tesla sales would stall-out, BIG time !

BMW was close to being there in 2005, but then they pivoted to chase the Chinese market, & screw'd themselves BIG time !

BTW, there is significant pent-up demand for what I've described.

Apple, OR really anyone, could use it as a First Step towards an EV.

Apple, OR really anyone, could have created a lot of Enthusiasm & learned a lot along the way.

But ... & there's always a but, they ALL chose to chase Tesla's Projected P/E instead.
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LOL.

I know you're joking. But imagine after a decade of hype, Apple finally unveils its revolutionary Car and it's:

Gas powered.

With a manual transmission.

And only 300hp.

LOL.

But seriously, I'm not very optimistic for an autonomous Apple EV. Sure it'll probably be a gorgeous, groundbreaking, ultra minimalist design with a sleek living-room style interior. But I doubt it'll come anywhere close to a Tesla where it counts.

My bet is it'll have geo-fenced autonomy (vs. Tesla's vastly more advanced general autonomy), average efficiency (vs. Tesla's 10 year lead in battery tech), and be a very expensive nitch luxury vehicle (probably very big to have a large enough battery pack to compete with Tesla).

Tesla is so far ahead of everyone, with it's progress accelerating faster than competitors can catch up.

The being said, by decade's end I think Apple, Lucid, and especially Rivian have a shot to filling in small gaps left over by the dominance of Testa and Chinese car makers (NIO, Li etc). With Google and Tesla providing autonomous software for whatever legacy automakers survive (VW has the best chance. The rest will likely die or merge).

(FYI I'm the guy who rendered an Apple car concept that most articles still use when talking about an Apple Cars. look it up)
 
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B-Mc-C said:
I think Mark Gurman is working for the short sellers lately. Just a vibe I am getting. Lots of negative reporting and I’m skeptical when people use ”anonymous sources.” Nikkei had to correct his reporting that iPhone was facing dwindling demand ahead of the holidays. As for these people being extremely key engineers, what is the source for that? I will believe it when I see an official org chart for the project from Apple. On a team of hundreds (previously as high as 1,000) engineers, there could literally be hundreds of “managers” with a couple of people underneath them.
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That would first require investors already having raised valuations on the prospect of an Apple Car. Nobody is buying AAPL because of Apple Car. Apple is a design company, not a manufacturing. They don't have the stomach, nor the expertise to become a heavy industrial manufacturer. And battery constraints don't allow them any leverage to squeeze critical supply costs. Apple's profit comes from selling highly scaled consumer devices and getting a cut of the software/content to use on them. A niche Apple Car would be a boondoggle for them.
 
Apple cannot build a smart speaker system. Building a car thousands of times more difficult. One tiny speaker the best they got? That’s it one speaker and how many years of developing? The TV remote, LG produces a magic remote with real innovation, not Apple. Not holding out any hope for an Apple car. Extremely sad actually.
 
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These people are all going to flying vehicles where "fully autonomous" is perhaps easier in the air.
 
ACHD said:
High profile engineers only leave over treatment, culture, internal disputes, project pending cancelation, or project is "dead in the water" but alive on paper.
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Or because they are research focused and don’t have interest in the painstaking path to production…
 
npmacuser5 said:
Apple cannot build a smart speaker system. Building a car thousands of times more difficult. One tiny speaker the best they got? That’s it one speaker and how many years of developing? The TV remote, LG produces a magic remote with real innovation, not Apple. Not holding out any hope for an Apple car. Extremely sad actually.
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LOL, what? No, it's not easier to build a car. People build kit cars all the time. Cars have 100+ years of development. Apple made something that lets you describe a song you want to play with your voice and in a container the size of a softball while sounding like something that used to take the space of a recliner. LG?

LG didn't invent the magic remote, palm did. LG simply made a 65" palm pilot.
 
During repeated testing they saw what happened to the dummies when they let Siri take control. Smart to bail early enough so they can't take the blame.
 
Perhaps Apple didn’t need them anymore or perhaps there is a reason that the Apple transportation vehicle doesn’t have a steering wheel.
 
There will never be an apple car IMO.

There might be some interesting tech, but the automotive industry is basically impossible to enter and get to full scale production. Tesla was a happy accident. (The other new BEV startups will fail).
 
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rukia said:
Professionals in the tech industry, including all the so called FAANG and other tier 1 companies, change jobs every two years on average despite four year vesting schedules. Tech professionals are rewarded mostly by restricted stock not base salary and this is just the way the math works out. Add in the recent job market meltup for tech labor and it's clear why you want to reset your comp to market often regardless of how well the company is doing. These headlines conveniently leave out this fact. The articles also imply that a few "key" tech people will make a massive difference to the project. It doesn't work that way. The strength of a tech project is comprised of thousands of small things done by thousands of people you never read about. It's not dependent on some secret heavenly wisdom from a few gurus. The head of Google AI moved to Apple a while ago. Did you notice any changes to Siri ? "Key Chip Engineers Join Nuvia." Apple silicon isn't doomed but dominating the industry. Jony Ive left Apple and product design hasn't crumbled. In fact he seemed to have taken the butterfly keyboard and Touch Bar with him.
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Why wouldn't Apple counter-offer to keep the professional in-house?
 
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I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that the Apple Car project has been shelved. I think that’s good news, too… not sure if Apple realized that there is a huge difference between iOS freezing and a car’s OS freezing.
 
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DanTSX said:
Why wouldn't Apple counter-offer to keep the professional in-house?
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The counter offer is a commonly discussed topic within the tech industry. Consensus is that if you want to leave for a pay bump, commonly 50% to 200%, just leave. There are many reasons why but here are the common ones

1) Most tech professionals are paid by base salary, bonus, and annual RSU refreshers. The bonus and RSU grant is variable and theoretically tied to your level and performance rating via a multiplier. However, managers have been known to offer a strong counter offer only to claw it back with lower RSU refresher, base salary adjustment, and bonus in following years.

2) Usually the counter offer isn't as strong. Comp policy for internal people are limited by different rules compared to external candidates. HR is limited by internal pay equity. Also, the largest RSU grant is usually the initial one when you first start your job and it will eclipse the annual RSU refreshers. BTW, this large initial grant is responsible for why tech workers churn every two years. There's also a large signing bonus when you start. People want to capture as many initial grants and signing bonus as possible.

3) Depending on the team a person who has shown a disposition to leave may not be awarded the best projects or promotions. At the "staff" level and above promotion spots have a quota and are limited. A manager will not waste the effort on backing a direct report for one of these valuable slots if that person is likely to leave. The effort is better invested on a more loyal employee who will produce for the team longer.

FYI a normal healthy tech company will see 6% attrition. This has increased by quite a bit during the pandemic for various reasons. With Apple's headcount there's over 1K people leaving every single month through normal heathy attrition. This is balanced by even more hiring. Every big tech company sees a similar flow of bodies yet the media creates a story when there are one or two more visible names that change companies. Tech professionals change jobs like they change their underwear. It means nothing and says nothing about the company or project.
 
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ACHD said:
You dont get high profile engineers and other lower ranking engineers leaving a company ENTIRELY if everything was going smooth. Very likely they feel the project is dead in the water or the company is choosing to stop work at a higher level and some signs were given and people were leaving.

High profile engineers only leave over treatment, culture, internal disputes, project pending cancelation, or project is "dead in the water" but alive on paper.
Click to expand...
Rubbish , you clearly not part if Silicon Valley culture if you think that , you can see which companies they went to , all aviation startups , if ppl are leaving you to other companies that’s doing the same , then maybe it’s something to do with the project , but it’s the golden age for their field of expertise they will be fools not to maximize their worth.
 
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mave1969 said:
I like to periodically remind people that Lynch was the product manager for Adobe Flash…
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So what?

And it was successful in its time, only hobbled by Adobe management’s lack of commitment to modernize it.

And Apple hired him “despite” his Flash experience.

And he led the wildly successful Apple Watch software team.

So what? If ever there was a company that proved Individual 2.0 could be better than Individual 1.0, it’s Apple (remember SJ?).

Maybe it’s time to discontinue such silly periodic reminders.
 
CJ Moore has been sacked from Tesla for lack of ability to push to stage 5, musk says it for years you can't make it in tesla you go to apple. you never see it another way round
 
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