Meta poaches Apple design exec Alan Dye

Alan Dye, the design executive who led Apple’s user interface team for the last decade, is leaving the company to join Meta, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

This is a significant hire for Meta, as the company makes a push toward consumer devices like smart glasses and virtual reality headsets. Dye will focus on improving AI features in these devices and report directly to Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth.

At Apple, Dye will be replaced by Steve Lemay, who has had “a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999,” according to a statement Apple CEO Tim Cook gave Bloomberg.

It seems that Meta is recruiting from its competitors to help the company compete in the AI race, as Meta also poached researchers from OpenAI this summer. (Allegedly, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg hand-delivered homemade soup to an OpenAI employee in a recruitment push; OpenAI chief research officer Mark Chen said that he has since delivered his own soup to promising Meta recruits.)