Paul Meade, the vice president who led hardware engineering for Apple's Vision Pro headset and its forthcoming smart glasses, is leaving the company to join OpenAI's hardware division, Bloomberg reported Thursday. Meade is expected to exit Apple by next week and will work on OpenAI's planned family of AI-powered consumer devices. Neither company has publicly commented on the move.
A Seven-Year Run in Spatial Computing
Meade was promoted to vice president of hardware engineering in 2019 and took the reins of Apple's Vision Products Group in March 2025, when his predecessor Mike Rockwell was reassigned to lead Siri. Over seven years, Meade helped build the Vision Pro from prototype to product and more recently steered work on display-free AI smart glasses Apple intends to release in 2027 to compete with Meta's Ray-Ban line.
His departure comes amid a broad leadership reshuffling triggered by the appointment of hardware chief John Ternus as Apple's next CEO, effective September 1. As part of that transition, Johny Srouji, now Apple's chief hardware officer, reorganized reporting lines across the hardware division in May, with Meade continuing to report through Tom Marieb. Meade's deputy, Fletcher Rothkopf — a founding member of the Vision Products Group who was promoted to VP of product design last year — will take over his responsibilities.
OpenAI's Growing Apple Alumni Network
At OpenAI, Meade joins a growing roster of former Apple executives shaping the startup's hardware ambitions. Designer Jony Ive's hardware startup, which included former Apple veterans Tang Tan and Evans Hankey, was acquired by OpenAI last year in a deal valued at $6.5 billion. OpenAI has hired at least 25 former Apple employees for its hardware efforts and is targeting the second half of 2026 to unveil its first device, according to statements from OpenAI's chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane earlier this year. The company is also developing a smartphone that analyst Ming-Chi Kuo says could begin mass production in early 2027.
What It Means for Apple's Vision Roadmap
Meade's exit adds to a string of high-profile departures that have reshaped Apple's senior ranks since late 2025, including AI chief John Giannandrea, interface design head Alan Dye, and several AI researchers who left for Meta. It also lands at a precarious moment for Apple's spatial computing strategy: both Kuo and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman have reported that every planned Vision Pro successor headset has been removed from Apple's product roadmap, leaving only the two smart glasses projects Meade was overseeing.