Apple: Two senior officials who had previously decided to leave Apple provoked staff drain

Bloomberg editor Mark Gurman reports that Apple is experiencing a large staff drain in three departments (Health, iCloud, and AI). The source does not name a specific number of employees who quit, but notes that there are more layoffs than usual - there is talk of a massive outflow of personnel.

The report mentions two high-ranking officials who had previously decided to leave Apple and could have provoked a staff drain. The first was Ruslan Meshenberg, who was previously the head of iCloud infrastructure development. He joined Apple in January 2020 and left in May 2021 after a year and five months at the company. Ruslan Meshenberg now works at Google as VP of Design for Major Websites. Also mentioned is Emily Fox, head of AI research in healthcare.

As for the reasons for the alleged “mass layoffs,” there are three theories. First, Apple was able to hire "an unusually large number of engineers." At some point, the employees became cramped, they do not perform the work they dream of, they constantly interfere with each other, and so on. A second theory is that many employees are unhappy with Apple's strategy of returning everyone to their offices this October, although Apple has shown its willingness to postpone that date. The original plan was to return everyone to their offices in September, but that date has been postponed due to another escalation in the situation. A significant number of Apple employees are in favor of a more “flexible” option than “return to the office”.

The third theory is “lack of optimism” about the products and services they develop. In particular, the health group is reportedly grappling with some internal issues, but no details are available.