Jony Ive’s Promotion

Stephen Fry published a story Monday. Ostensibly about Apple’s upper executives and the new campus, the real story was buried in the middle: Jony Ive got a new job.

When I catch up with Ive alone, I ask him why he has seemingly relinquished the two departments that had been so successfully under his control. “Well, I’m still in charge of both,” he says, “I am called Chief Design Officer. Having Alan and Richard in place frees me up from some of the administrative and management work which isn’t … which isn’t …”

“Which isn’t what you were put on this planet to do?”
“Exactly.

Those two are as good as it gets. Richard was lead on the iPhone from the start. He saw it all the way through from prototypes to the first model we released. Alan has a genius for human interface design. So much of the Apple Watch’s operating system came from him. With those two in place I can …”
I could feel him avoiding the phrase “blue sky thinking”… think more freely?”
“Yes!”

Jony will travel more, he told me. Among other things, he will bring his energies to bear – as he has already since their inception – on the Apple Stores that are proliferating around the world. The company’s retail spaces have been one of their most extraordinary successes.

Jony was promoted from Senior Vice President of Design to the newly-created position of Chief Design Officer. In fact, one might say Jony was promoted right out of the building – as of July 1st, he won’t personally be in charge of hardware or software design, instead managing other executives in these roles. It’s hard to say whether this is good news or bad news, but it is news nonetheless. It could mean Jony is stepping away and returning to his British homeland. It could also mean exactly what it says – that he wants more of an overhead role, and would rather leave execution details to SVPs.

Ben Thompson at Stratechery summed up the “Jony-is-leaving-soon” argument. If you only read one commentary on the Stephen Fry story, make it his.