Over 1/4 of Apple: Jony Ive’s Departure Will Hurt Apple

Over 50% of Apple employees believe there will be no change. 

Apple’s chief design officer, Jony Ive announced that he was leaving Apple to start his own design firm, Lovefirm. Ive had been with Apple Inc. since 1998, so this news shocked the tech industry and Apple fans around the world. Meanwhile, Tim Cook responded to the reports as ‘absurd,’ after rumors stated the Ive’s departure was caused by frustration between the two leaders. 

We wanted to ask verified Apple employees what they really think about Ive’s departure and how impactful they think it would be for their company. We also surveyed the tech community on this issue. 

Key Points:

• Just 51% of Apple employees believe that Ive’s departure will result in no change.
• The other half believe that there will be an impact, and more Apple employees believe that there will be negative impact due to the departure.
• More than 77% of Apple employees are hopeful that Apple will remain as a tech design leader
• Over 90% of those who stated that Apple would have ‘positive impact’ or ‘no change’ stated the company would remain as a tech product design leader.
• For those who stated the departure would have a negative impact, only 32% stated that Apple could remain as a tech product design leader

The Survey:

From 7/1/2019 to 7/2/2019, workplace community app Blind ran a survey to its users to find out the sentiment about the Sir Jony Ive’s departure from Apple. 

Q1: What impact will Jony Ive’s departure have on Apple’s future? [Positive impact/ No change/ Negative impact]

Q2: How important was Jony Ive to Apple’s success? [Important/ Neutral/ Not important]

Q3: Can Apple continue to be a tech product design leader without Jony Ive? [Yes/ No]