Apple's brain drain problem is to Google's advantage, report shows

A new report based on the LinkedIn profiles of people working in the technology industry claims that the most likely place that former Apple employees will turn up is Google. That's news that will no doubt be music to the ears of those working in Mountain View, but those who ply their trade over in Cupertino will no doubt find the report less promising.

The numbers were put together by Switch on Business and then picked up by 9to5Mac, with the research team searching how many employees currently worked at companies like Google, Amazon, Apple Meta, Microsoft, IBM, Tesla, Oracle, Netflix, NVIDIA, Salesforce, Adobe, Intel, and Uber. The work then saw them look at those companies as well as which companies they worked for previously. From there they calculated the count and percentage of current employees at each company that previously worked at the others.

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The results show that Apple most likely gets its new hires from Intel, which would make sense given the company's buyout of its modem business in 2019 and a focus on producing its own chips. Microsoft and Amazon were the second and third most-sourced for Apple.

In terms of where former employees of Apple's would go next, Google was the most likely while Amazon was second and Meta was third. That last one is perhaps interesting, while the move to Google shouldn't be a shock considering the fact the two companies work in similar fields.

It's likely that Apple would rather its former employees didn't turn up working at Google, and it's a great example of why the company should ensure that it keeps its best people rather than risk losing them to the competition.