AirPods Pro Development Pushed Apple Toward Less Internal Secrecy and Greater Collaboration, Says Former HR Executive

As AirPods Pro were under development in the years before their launch in 2019, Apple was pushed by a small team of HR managers to adopt a more transparent and less secretive work atmosphere for employees, a departure from the ultra-secretive and siloed work culture that leads to most of the company's products.

airpods pro black background
The revelation comes from a guest article on Fast Company written by Chris Deaver, a former Apple HR manager who worked at the company from 2015 to 2019. In the article, Deaver describes, as is well-known, Apple's stringent culture of product secrecy and confidentiality. Employees working on products such as the Mac or iPad have no insight into what teams working on the iPhone or other products are doing, creating a great sense of exclusion for some employees.

That culture of immense Apple secrecy and confinement of information often left employees working on different products and disciplines in uncomfortable dilemmas of not knowing who they can speak to and who they must keep secrets away from out of fear of legal or work-related punishments. "How do I operate like this? If I can only share information with certain people, how do I know who and when? I don’t want to end up fired or in jail," Deaver quotes one employee saying during his time at the company.

Beyond personal and social dilemmas for employees, the culture of secrecy also caused friction across teams at the company. Deaver describes his role as part of the HR department as having to deal with internal disputes, which he said often came from complaints of "that team not sharing."

Deaver, alongside a close business friend, Ian Clawson, conceived a small team of HR experts and partners to think of a new, more transparent way for Apple's teams to work that would result in less friction during the development of products. Deaver said he was inspired to do this based on his experience having seen the development of the original AirPods, which reportedly left staff feeling burned out and frustrated.

Teams were innovating for months in silos only to finally converge in the eleventh hour before launch, ending up in five- or six-hour-long daily meetings, causing tremendous friction and burnout. People were frustrated. They wanted to leave or to “never work with that one person again.”

How could Apple have avoided the internal turmoil we faced with the development of AirPods? How do cultures take the shape they do? These questions and the inspired sessions with Ian, led me to form a mini braintrust at Apple. As a small group of HR partners, we started to explore this by getting curious about the Apple culture.

The brainstorming of this team ultimately led Apple to adopt a more transparent and collaborative work culture for the ‌AirPods Pro‌. Instead of separate groups working in silos, all on the same products but not being able to communicate or work together, Apple opted for an open, free-flowing workflow for the ‌AirPods Pro‌.

As teams converged with leaders becoming more open, connected, and driving higher quality collaboration than ever before. We spent time coaching, collaborating, and influencing key leaders and engineers driving the next frontier of AirPods. What emerged was a braintrust with regular sessions, openness, and connection that brought to life the insanely great, noise-canceling AirPods Pro. It was a testament to innovation, but also to the power of sharing. Yes, sharing could be done in the context of secrecy.

The new culture was internally dubbed "Different Together," a play on Apple's iconic "Think Different" campaign. Part of Apple's priority in maintaining high secrecy is preventing leaks and rumors about what the company is working on. As Deaver tries to prove, Apple can both be secretive and collorbaritve simultaneously, as demonstrated by the development of ‌AirPods Pro‌.

Related Roundup: AirPods Pro
Related Forum: AirPods

Popular Stories

iphone 16 pro models 1

17 Reasons to Wait for the iPhone 17

Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you skipped the iPhone...
iPadOS 26 App Windowing

Apple Explains Why iPads Don't Just Run macOS

Friday June 13, 2025 7:46 am PDT by
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why. In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
iOS 26 Screens

Here Are All the iOS 26 Features That Require iPhone 15 Pro or Newer

Thursday June 12, 2025 4:53 am PDT by
With iOS 26, Apple has introduced some major changes to the iPhone experience, headlined by the new Liquid Glass redesign that's available across all compatible devices. However, several of the update's features are exclusive to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models, since they rely on Apple Intelligence. The following features are powered by on-device large language models and machine...
apple beta 26 lineup

Apple 'Sherlocked' These Apps at WWDC 2025

Wednesday June 11, 2025 7:14 am PDT by
Apple at WWDC previewed a bunch of new features coming in its updated operating systems, but certain changes will have been met with dismay by third-party developers who already offer apps with equivalent or similar features. In other words, their product has been "sherlocked" by Apple. When Apple creates an app or a feature that has functionality found in a third-party app, it is referred...
iOS 26 on Three iPhones

Hate iOS 26's Liquid Glass Design? Here's How to Tone It Down

Wednesday June 11, 2025 4:22 pm PDT by
iOS 26 features a whole new design material that Apple calls Liquid Glass, with a focus on transparency that lets the content on your display shine through the controls. If you're not a fan of the look, or are having trouble with readability, there is a step that you can take to make things more opaque without entirely losing out on the new look. Apple has multiple Accessibility options that ...
maxresdefault

Everything Apple Announced at WWDC 2025 in 10 Minutes

Monday June 9, 2025 5:21 pm PDT by
At today's WWDC 2025 keynote event, Apple unveiled a new design that will inform the next decade of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS development, so needless to say, it was a busy day. Apple also unveiled a ton of new features for the iPhone, an overhauled Spotlight interface for the Mac, and a ton of updates that make the iPad more like a Mac than ever before. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel ...
CarPlay Liquid Glass Dark

Apple to Let iPhone Users Watch Videos on CarPlay Screen While Parked

Thursday June 12, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple this week announced that iPhone users will soon be able to watch videos right on the CarPlay screen in supported vehicles. iPhone users will be able to wirelessly stream videos to the CarPlay screen using AirPlay, according to Apple. For safety reasons, video playback will only be available when the vehicle is parked, to prevent distracted driving. The connected iPhone will be able to...
Logitech Logo Feature

Logitech Announces Two New Accessories for WWDC

Friday June 13, 2025 7:22 am PDT by
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro. The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...

Top Rated Comments

szw-mapple fan Avatar
41 months ago
Secrecy works well for independent skunk works projects but for devices already in the ecosystem it doesn’t really make sense to develop everything independently given how much of Apple’s “secret sauce” is devices working well with each other. Some of the worst bugs or discrepancies between devices/features over the past few years could have been caught if teams worked more collaboratively.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Red Oak Avatar
41 months ago
A 3 yr HR middle manager trying to pat himself on the back.

You could not even keep your idea a secret. It’s why your no longer here
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SirAnthonyHopkins Avatar
41 months ago

One of the things that I love about Apple is that their products aren't leaked as heavily as Apple and Samsung do.
can't even figure out what you're trying to say here.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
KENESS Avatar
41 months ago

Can someone tell me what benefit all this secrecy is still providing? Apple counter-intel operations are clearly still going strong, and all the most interesting leaks come from the supply chain anyway. Maybe if teams could talk to each other we wouldn't have a notch randomly changing size with no accompanying software developments.

I know Steve Jobs absoluely loved to hide iPods and iPhones in his pocket, have the big reveal. This made sense fifteen years ago. Does every little thing still have to be treated like it's national security?
Considering how brazenly and blatantly certain companies copy some of Apple's ideas, I would suspect there is still a significant benefit in the secrecy.

The copies are often times not nearly as good or well thought out, but a huge amount of the wow-factor would be diminished if a hastily pushed out copy actually BEAT Apple's original idea to market.

That said, managing the internal secrecy, especially for their own people, is important. And it looks like that is what they did, based on this article. They suffered a less-than-ideal scenario with the original AirPods development, and tried to find a way to do better the next time around, with the AirPods Pro.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Leon Ze Professional Avatar
41 months ago
This was an interesting read and thanks for the insight. But this culture would not be my cup of tea. I view collaboration as really important in the work environment.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
44267547 Avatar
41 months ago

One of the things that I love about Apple is that their products aren't leaked as heavily as Apple and Samsung do.
Wait….what?

Apple has had plenty of leaks over the years, i.e-the Apple Watch has had loads of leaks (Red crown, schematics, first Edition, ect) The HomePod code that was leaked, the iPhone is on another level of leak's, the AirPods, ect. If anything, Apple probably has had more leaks than Samsung in just about every category, primarily due to Foxconn, Shenzhen, China leakers.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)