Vision Pro Leader Paul Meade Exits Apple for OpenAI Hardware

Paul Meade, the executive overseeing Apple’s Vision Products Group since Mike Rockwell moved to lead Siri’s AI overhaul, is leaving Apple for OpenAI’s hardware unit. Bloomberg reported the departure, with Meade expected to be gone by next week. He had been at Apple since 2010 and joined the Vision Products Group in 2017.

Meade’s portfolio at Apple was broader than his title suggested. He was running the hardware engineering team for Vision Pro before taking on wider leadership, and more recently he was directing development of Apple’s AI smart glasses intended to compete with Meta’s Ray-Bans, alongside a separate augmented reality glasses project.

The Reorganization Behind the Exit

The departure is not purely voluntary ambition. According to Bloomberg, Meade’s decision follows executive reshuffling tied to John Ternus preparing to take over as CEO. Johny Srouji is stepping into Ternus’s current role as chief hardware officer, and that reorganization has unsettled several hardware executives. Meade is one of them.

Fletcher Rothkopf, who handles product design for Vision Pro and the smart glasses line, will take over Meade’s responsibilities. That transition lands at an awkward moment, given that Vision Pro development has been paused until at least 2027 as Apple redirects attention toward the glasses category.

OpenAI has now collected a notable cluster of former Apple hardware talent. Jony Ive, Tang Tan, and Evans Hankey are already there, and Meade joins a hardware unit that is clearly being built with Apple’s design and engineering culture in mind. Whether that team produces anything is a separate question, but the recruiting pattern is hard to ignore.