‘Congratulations, dude’: Nothing loses key designer to Apple and CEO Carl Pei fires a subtle shot at Tim Cook

With the launch of the iPhone 17 imminent, Apple turned heads when it hired Mladen M. Hoyss, who until now was the software creative director of London-based Nothing, as the human interface designer. Carl Pei, the CEO of Nothing, who rarely minces his words, took to X to congratulate his former colleague on his new role.

However, Pei did so with a tongue-in-cheek message for Apple CEO Tim Cook. He told Cook that he should “let” him know in case he needs any more product help. “Congratulations, dude, so proud of you. Tim Cook, let me know if you need any more product help,” reads Pei’s post on X. Cook is yet to respond to Pei’s post.

Hoyss, who is a Berlin-based software designer, was instrumental in making Nothing’s user and visual interface. It has played a pivotal role in Nothing—a relatively smaller company with coffers significantly lesser than brands such as OnePlus, Huawei, and Xiaomi—carving its own niche in a hypercompetitive smartphone industry. Pei’s comments have also come close on the heels of the launch of Nothing Phone (3), which is slated to be launched in July this year, although the exact date of the launch has not been disclosed yet.

Some have seen Pei’s flippant remark as a subtle attempt to highlight how the bigger companies are taking cognisance of the strides Nothing has made, insofar as they are poaching the people who made Nothing stand out from the crowd to turn a new leaf with their products. “This shows that Nothing is so good at what it does that a $4 trillion company, Apple, prefers to 'adopt' other people's talent,” wrote one user.

Others, meanwhile, have drawn parallels to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ highly publicised email when he discovered that Adobe was actively hiring from Apple. In an email to the then CEO of Adobe, Bruce Chizen, Jobs wrote, “Adobe is recruiting from Apple. They have hired one person already and are calling lots more. I have a standing policy with our recruiters that we don't recruit from Adobe. It seems you have a different policy. One of us must change our policy. Please let me know who.”