Apple designer behind iPhone Air joins new AI startup Hark

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Two months after reports surfaced that the industrial designer who helped introduce the iPhone Air at Apple’s September event had left the company for an unnamed AI firm, new details have now emerged about his next move.

According to Bloomberg, Abidur Chowdhury, an industrial designer at Apple, has joined Hark, a newly formed AI startup founded by Brett Adcock. Adcock is also the CEO of Figure AI, and will continue to lead that company alongside his new role at Hark.

Very little is known publicly about Hark so far. A memo reviewed by The Information reveals that the startup was launched just a few weeks ago and has been funded with $100 million from Adcock’s personal capital. The memo describes Hark’s mission as building “human-centric” AI systems that can think proactively, improve themselves recursively, and place a strong emphasis on caring about people.

The memo also notes that Hark’s first cluster of graphics processing units went live earlier this week, although details about the size or computing capacity of the cluster were not disclosed.

Bloomberg’s report adds that Hark has already begun aggressively hiring talent from some of the biggest names in tech. So far, around 30 engineers have been recruited from companies including Google, Meta, and Amazon. The startup is reportedly aiming to grow its engineering team to about 100 people in the first half of the year.

Chowdhury’s move marks another high-profile departure from Apple, as competition for experienced design and AI talent continues to intensify across Silicon Valley.