Did Jony Ive Leave Because Apple Is in Trouble?

On June 27th, in an exclusive interview with the Financial Times, Jony Ive announced he was leaving Apple after twenty-seven years to start his own design firm. Was this the next step in a remarkable career — or an indication of trouble at Apple?

Executives leave before the trouble starts. I’ve seen that throughout my career, but I didn’t understand it until I became an executive.

The simple truth is that if you’re an executive, your future career depends your performance — but performance depends on a lot of factors outside your control. You simply can’t afford to stay on a sinking ship, because there aren’t a lot of opportunities out there for the next Marissa Mayer.

I’ve been fortunate to work on a few really special tech projects in my career — some were successful, others went out of business, and many more became trapped as mid-market players, unable to fully realize their ambition.

During that time, especially the dot-com boom & bust years, I saw firsthand scores of Redmond tech companies fail for a hundred different reasons, and that’s when I learned how executive departures work.

Is Apple In Trouble?

The media’s been saying it is since the beginning of 2019, starting with a slew of stories with titles like, “Apple…