Apple is a notoriously secretive company.
Leaks of new iPhone designs are coveted like signs from a higher power. Not much is known about the people who manage the company’s giant cash hoard. Even Apple’s headquarters looks like a villain’s lair from a James Bond film.
At Wired’s 25th anniversary summit in San Francisco today (Oct. 15), Apple design chief Jony Ive offered his perspective on the company’s tight-lippedness.
“Why is Apple so secretive?” Ive was asked on stage by Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, in front of a crowd of 500 tech industry insiders.
“I think it would be bizarre not to be,” Ive replied. “I don’t know many creatives who want to talk about what they’re doing when they’re halfway through it.”
“Really?” an incredulous Wintour responded, suggesting she and Ive must know “very different people.” The creatives she knows, it seems, love to discuss what they’re working on.
But Ive was unflustered. “I’ve been doing this for long enough where I actually feel a responsibility to not confuse or add more noise about what’s being worked on because I know that sometimes it does not work out. And so I think it’s just in our nature” to stay quiet about a project until it’s done.