One of Apple’s silicon leadership team, security professor Jeff Wilcox has been poached by Intel. Wilcox was a huge driving force behind the development of the T2 security chip that has shipped in most recent Mac computers.
It’s notable that Wilcox was a former Intel employee so it seems that Intel might have had their eye on reacquiring his talent for quite some time. He also lead the M1 development team, reporting in to the head of Apple’s silicon team, Johnny Srouji.
“After an amazing eight years I have decided to leave Apple and pursue another opportunity,” wrote Wilcox on his LinkedIn page. “It has been an incredible ride and I could not be prouder of all we accomplished during my time there, culminating in the Apple Silicon transition with the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max SOCs and systems. I will dearly miss all of my Apple colleagues and friends.”
William Gallagher writing for Appleinsider
It’s interesting that such a major player in Apple’s legendary silicon team would jump ships when Apple has just celebrated the half way point of its transition. Perhaps Intel just gave him a blank cheque. And if there is one thing Apple won’t do, is force people to stay that don’t believe in the mission or truly want to be there. Wilcox’s expertise will serve Intel well. And perhaps for Apple it’s best all round. They can offer opportunities to other highly talented engineers in the chip team instead.
I smiled when I read the input on this topic from MacDailyNews: “That’s like leaving Tesla to go make Trabants”