What the heck is going on at Apple?

Insofar as this article is about the 4 execs leaving Apple, this is a total non-story and the "What the heck is going on at Apple" is just click bait:

- Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy and social initiatives, and general counsel Kate Adams, are set to retire. While these may be high level execs, they don't really have much to do with the overall direction and success of the company. And given the change in the political environment you've seen tons of changes in roles like these at many companies in the past 11 months.

- Alan Dye, vice president of human interface design, is leaving to join Meta as its chief design officer. Sounds like he won't really be missed: https://9to5mac.com/2025/12/04/gruber-apple-employees-giddy-.... Assuming he was responsible for Liquid Glass, I say good riddance.

- John Giannandrea, senior vice president of machine learning and AI strategy, is also retiring. He had basically already been demoted, taken off leading Siri due to Siri's competitive failures.

So yeah, it's pretty obvious that Apple is behind the AI wave, but honestly, they may end up having the last laugh given how much backlash there is from consumers about trying to shoehorn AI into all these places where it's just an annoyance.

There's more than just 4 execs and imo an unprecedented level of turnover for a historically very stable company. It’s multiple senior leaders across legal, policy, AI, design, hardware, and operations leaving within a short period, making it one of Apple’s most significant leadership shakeups in years, which is why several outlets are finding it newsworthy.

1) John Giannandrea, Senior VP of Machine Learning & AI Strategy, Apple’s AI chief is leaving in 2026 after setbacks with Siri, his entire team is being reorganized and cut.

2) Alan Dye, VP of Design and responsible for liquid glass left for Meta Bloomberg

3) Kate Adams, the top lawyer and general counsel is leaving

4) Lisa Jackson, VP of Policy & Social Initiatives also leaving

5) Johny Srouji, hardware/chip head, said he is "seriously considering leaving" which is really interesting seeing as he actually said that out loud for press to report on.

6) Jeff Williams, COO retired

7) Luca Maestri the CFO left ealier this year

8) Ruoming Pang the AI foundation leader left for Meta

9) Ke Yang, head of Siri search also left for Meta.

A lot of other AI engineers have also left.

1, 8 and 9 leaving is expected. They failed at their jobs.

3 and 4 literally don't matter.

5, 6 and 7 probably left / are going to leave because they got news they wouldn't get the CEO role once Cook retires.

2 is the big surprise that raises the most eyebrows.

Seems it's mostly succession drama with a side of failure @ AI.