What you need to know
- Joe Bass has reportedly left the Apple Car Team.
- Bass was the head of software engineering program management for the Apple Car team.
- Almost nobody from the management team of 2020 is still around.
Apple continues to hemorrhage talent from its Apple Car team, with Joe Bass having now reportedly moved on to pastures new.
Bass was reportedly the head of software engineering program management for the Apple Car team until recently. Now, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman writing in his weekly Power On newsletter, he's moved on to take a role at Meta.
Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the latest person to jump ship is the fact that the management team now in place consists of very few people who were there just a year ago — highlighting just how many people have moved on.
With Bass's departure, nearly the entire Apple car management team in place just one year ago is gone. Dave Scott, Jaime Waydo, Dave Rosenthal and Benjamin Lyon all left in early 2021. Doug Field, who ran the car team, headed for the exits in September. Michael Schwekutsch, who was in charge of hardware for Apple's project, soon followed. Then top engineers bolted.
The same report says that more than 100 Apple employees have defected to Meta "over the past several months," a number that Apple will surely want to try and prevent growing.
It isn't known exactly what state the Apple Car project is in right now. Reports have had Apple talking to car manufacturers to try and strike a deal last year, while Apple reportedly spoke with car parts manufacturers as far as two years ago. Whether Apple is still planning on producing its own car or selling its technology to others, is anyone's guess right now.
