**[Apple Vision Pro and Smart Glasses Head Paul Meade to Join OpenAI]** According to monitoring by Dongcha Beating, sources reveal that Paul Meade, Apple’s Vice President of Hardware Engineering for Vision Pro headsets and smart glasses, will leave the company next week to join OpenAI’s hardware division, where he will lead the development of a range of future AI hardware devices. Meade has worked at Apple for 16 years and was a key engineering management leader for the iPad and iPhone projects. In 2017, he joined the Vision Products Group (VPG), which is responsible for headset development, and has been overseeing hardware engineering since 2019. With Vision Pro’s sales performance underwhelming, Apple has recently made significant adjustments to its hardware roadmap, shifting its development focus from closed headsets to smart glasses similar to Meta’s offerings. Mike Rockwell, the former head of VPG, has been reassigned to the Siri team, leading to VPG being split into separate hardware and software organizations. Another major factor behind Meade’s departure is the recent large-scale restructuring of Apple’s hardware engineering department. After John Ternus was confirmed to succeed Tim Cook as CEO on September 1, the new Chief Hardware Officer Johny Srouji initiated a reorganization, which resulted in Meade and several other vice presidents being moved under the reporting line of newly appointed Vice President Tom Marieb, effectively a demotion. After joining OpenAI, Meade will once again work with former Apple design executives Jony Ive, Tang Tan, and Evans Hankey. The AI hardware startup founded by these three executives was acquired by OpenAI last year for $6.5 billion. Currently, both Apple and OpenAI spokespersons have declined to comment. [Original Link]