It’s Time for Apple to End Its Culture of Secrecy

The Apple Intelligence debacle calls for a cultural reset and the end of silos in Cupertino.

Apple has long thrilled the public by keeping its products secret and releasing them in high-gloss events with “one more thing” surprises. The company’s marketing magic has made its launch events must-see-TV, with audiences held in suspense knowing they might learn something new at any moment.

These signature events, backed by strong product execution, helped turn Apple into one of the world’s most prized brands, an enduring icon atop the world’s most valuable company leaderboard.

But times have changed, and Apple must too. The company’s been unable to keep its product pipeline under wraps, with major recent launches including the Vision Pro and Apple Intelligence documented in painstaking detail by reporters before the curtain’s rise, particularly by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. And, for the modest payoff of revealing already-known surprises, Apple’s paid a significant price, one that’s now manifested in a full-blown crisis.

To keep its products secret from the public before launch, Apple’s kept them secret from many of its own employees. To speak with colleagues about the project they’re working on, Apple employees must ensure their counterparts are “disclosed,” or allowed to know about it. If you’re not both disclosed on the product, you can’t compare notes, ask for advice, or share concerns about bottlenecks. The system stymies collaboration, especially when building cutting-edge technology that necessitates quick, multi-unit collaboration.

The secrecy is particularly destructive in artificial intelligence development. Modern day AI moves fast — much faster than iterating on operating systems — and nimble teams obsessed with discovery have led the field. It was OpenAI, then a small non-profit, that released ChatGPT. It was High-Flyer, a once-obscure Chinese hedge fund with a bunch of GPUs, that released DeepSeek r1.

These upstarts didn’t have more means or superior talent to Apple, they had employees that talk all day about what they’re working on, compare notes on the latest discoveries, and learn from each other. At Apple, the AI team working on one product might not be allowed to talk to the AI team on another. The computer vision engineers working on FaceID, for instance, couldn’t speak with the computer vision team working on the company’s now-defunct self-driving car project, as I reported in my book, Always Day One. With two teams working in parallel on the same AI technology, the result can be underwhelming execution.

And no project within Apple requires a removal of silos more than Apple Intelligence. In its ideal form, the technology will touch all parts of the company’s operating systems (mobile and desktop), bringing information from every app into a cohesive experience with Siri at the center. Saddling the team building Apple Intelligence with the company’s traditional culture is a recipe for a perpetual dud. Reforming Apple’s secrecy culture, more than shuffling executives, is the way forward.

This is not a new problem for Apple. One ex-Apple engineer who worked on its beleaguered HomePod product told me a concerning story as I reported the Apple chapter of Always Day One. The employee, while on the project, never saw the physical HomePod outside of one chance encounter. "A few months before it launched, I happened to be in an office of an engineer who had a cardboard box in the corner of the room,” the ex-Apple employee told me. “And I was like, 'What's that?' and he goes, 'That's the HomePod,' so I happened to see one that was turned off.”

With procedures like this, the company seems like it’s outsmarting itself. The HomePod, unsurprisingly, remains a disappointment.

I’m not suggesting Apple take down all barriers and allow all employees to speak freely to the public. But the company has lost the element of surprise in its product reveals, and it has nothing to lose by breaking down the barriers. If it wants Apple Intelligence to succeed, and to be broadly competitive building AI products, it’s long past time to knock down the walls.

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What Else I’m Reading, Etc.

Tim Cook has lost faith in the company’s AI chief as Apple Intelligence delay drama continues [Bloomberg]

Nvidia unveils new chips and trove of AI products at GTC 2025 [Financial Times]

Almost every Cybertruck in the US got recalled [TechCrunch]

Judge rules AI art can’t be copyrighted, saying AI is not “sentient” [Reuters]

After taking down Intel, Lisa Su has her sight set on Nvidia [CNBC]

Mark Rober’s Wile E. Coyote Tesla test didn’t follow the scientific method [The Verge]

NCAA upset crashes underdog McNeese State’s website [ESPN]

Number of The Week

$32 billion

Google acquired security company Wiz for this whopping sum this week, the largest acquisition in the company’s history.

Quote of The Week

This is the first event in history where a company CEO invites all of the guests to explain why he was wrong

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, walking back his stock-crashing statement that commercially-viable quantum computing companies were more than 15 years away.

This Week on Big Technology Podcast: Why Can't AI Make Its Own Discoveries? — With Yann LeCun

Yann LeCun is the chief AI scientist at Meta. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss the strengths and limitations of current AI models, weighing in on why they've been unable to invent new things despite possessing almost all the world's written knowledge. LeCun digs deep into AI science, explaining why AI systems must build an abstract knowledge of the way the world operates to truly advance. We also cover whether AI research will hit a wall, whether investors in AI will be disappointed, and the value of open source after DeepSeek. Tune in for a fascinating conversation with one of the world's leading AI pioneers.

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My book Always Day One digs into the tech giants’ inner workings, focusing on automation and culture. I’d be thrilled if you’d give it a read. You can find it here.

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