Apple hands AI team tokens and hardware
- Apple gave rare, out-of-cycle stock bonuses to many iPhone product designers in March, trying to slow departures to OpenAI and other AI hardware startups. - The restricted stock awards were worth about $200,000 to $400,000, vest over four years, and came as rivals dangled roughly $1 million packages. - The move followed OpenAI’s hiring of former Apple leaders for device work, deepening pressure on Apple’s hardware bench. (bloomberg.com)
Apple gave rare stock bonuses to many iPhone product designers in March after OpenAI and other artificial intelligence startups stepped up recruiting. (bloomberg.com) The awards were out of cycle, separate from normal compensation, and targeted at members of Apple’s iPhone Product Design team, according to Bloomberg. (bloomberg.com) Bloomberg reported the grants were restricted stock units worth roughly $200,000 to $400,000 over four years, meaning employees have to stay to collect the full amount. (bloomberg.com) The immediate pressure came from OpenAI, which Bloomberg said has offered some Apple engineers annual equity packages around $1 million. (bloomberg.com) OpenAI’s recruiting matters because it is not just hiring software researchers. It has been building a hardware effort with former Apple design chief Jony Ive and former Apple hardware executive Tang Tan. (bloomberg.com 1) (bloomberg.com 2) Bloomberg said OpenAI had already hired dozens of Apple engineers across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Vision Pro work. That turned Apple’s retention problem from a pay issue into a product issue. (bloomberg.com) The episode also fits Apple’s broader reset around artificial intelligence hardware and software. Bloomberg reported in February that Apple was accelerating work on smart glasses, a pendant and camera-equipped AirPods built around Siri. (bloomberg.com) A week after the bonus report, Bloomberg said Apple was preparing a bigger Siri overhaul in iOS 27 that would let outside artificial intelligence assistants plug into the iPhone beyond ChatGPT. (bloomberg.com) That makes the retention packages easier to read: Apple is trying to keep the people who design its devices while competitors build rival AI gadgets and assistants around former Apple talent. (bloomberg.com)
