A rising star in Apple’s design team, Abidur Chowdhury, recently left the tech giant to join an artificial intelligence startup, marking another significant departure from the company’s industrial design division. Chowdhury’s exit is notable not only because of his impactful role but also because the Apple design team remains small and highly selective, making each loss deeply felt.
Chowdhury joined Apple in January 2019 as an industrial designer and quickly gained prominence within the team. He played a pivotal role in the development of the ultra-thin iPhone Air, a product widely praised for its sleek design and engineering. This talent was showcased when Chowdhury was chosen to introduce the iPhone Air in Apple’s September launch event — a role typically reserved for leading figures within the company’s closely guarded design group.
Apple’s industrial design team, once headed by design legend Jony Ive, has historically been central to the company’s success. This exclusive group, numbering around 30 members, has consistently delivered some of the most iconic and thoughtfully crafted products in technology. Ive’s departure in 2019 marked the beginning of a notable shift, with several key designers leaving in the subsequent years. The team lost veterans sharing decades of expertise, and some prominent designers were recruited by Ive’s new firm, LoveFrom, which has since been acquired by OpenAI.
More recently, Evans Hankey, who succeeded Ive as head of the industrial design team, left Apple in 2022, highlighting ongoing changes within this critical division. Now, with Chowdhury’s departure, Apple faces growing challenges in retaining top design talent at a time when the industry is increasingly competitive.
This trend is not isolated to the design group. Apple is also experiencing a brain drain in its AI and engineering teams, losing top personnel to competitors like Meta, which has aggressively recruited Apple’s AI engineers with lucrative offers. This broader talent exodus suggests Apple is at a crossroads, needing to strengthen its strategies for retaining its future innovators.
Despite underwhelming sales of the iPhone Air, which is Apple’s thinnest and most minimalist iPhone design to date, Chowdhury’s departure is unrelated to its market performance. Instead, it reflects a broader industry shift where AI startups are rapidly attracting talent from established tech companies, sometimes offering the opportunity to shape new frontiers in technology beyond hardware design.
As Apple continues evolving, the question remains whether it can maintain its design legacy and innovation leadership or whether the next wave of groundbreaking design will emerge from the rapidly growing AI sector.
