Yahoo Finance The $13billion man: How one employee's resignation has rocked Apple
Apple’s chief design officer, Jony Ive, has announced he will depart the tech giant later this year to start his own design firm, LoveFrom - and Apple will be its first client.
"After nearly 30 years and countless projects, I am most proud of the lasting work we have done to create a design team, process and culture at Apple that is without peer,” Ive said in a statement.
Related article: Jony Ive, designer of the iPhone, is leaving Apple
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Ive began his career with Apple in 1996, when the company was in poor financial health and cutting jobs, but Apple’s revival coincided with Ive’s iMac in 1998, and again with the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007, and the Apple Watch in 2015.
Ive was even a close confidant of Apple’s founder, Steve Jobs.
But, it seems it’s not just Apple’s design that will suffer as a result of Ive’s departure; according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Apple’s shares fell 1.5 per cent to US$197.44 in the after-market trading, wiping nearly US$9 billion (AU$12.9 billion) from the company’s value.
Apple’s analyst with creative strategies said it would be “the most significant departure of somebody who was a core part of the growth story” under Jobs.
There won’t be an immediate successor for Ive, with his role to be split into two: Evans Hankey will take over as vice president of industrial design, and Alan Dye will become vice president of human interface design.
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