Kinda feel for poor Jony here. Went from doing industrial design for some of the most widely-used and sought after products in the world to making a logo for a greenwashing group. Hope to see more interesting stuff from him going forward.
In some ways, working for a big tech conglomerate can be seen as being a sellout in more artistic circles.
For some engineers, Google might be peak street cred. For others, it’s working on Rust. It’s super competitive to get into SpaceX, good for them, but I’m not being a code monkey for Elon. For finance roles, it could be Goldman, whereas it’s less prestigious to be a Goldman software engineer. Then in finance, those in equities may think they are superior to those working in equities. There’s talented people in all sorts of places, and there are mediocre people too. I’m sure Jony Ives is rich enough to not work or start his own project if he wants to. Maybe this project is something that is a personal / intellectual challenge because it is so distinct from Apple.