10 Great Companies Founded By Former Apple Employees
Nest Labs, the company behind The Learning Thermostat, was started by the guy who created
the iPod. While at Apple, Tony Fadell helped redefine the concept of a portable music player
by developing the iPod. Fadell left the company in 2008 and later founded Nest Labs in 2010,
a company that is redefining another product: the thermostat. Apple recently partnered with
Nest to start selling the thermostat in its online store.
Andy Rubin started his career in the early 90s as an engineer at Apple. He later founded
Android, an open source mobile software company, which was eventually bought up by
Google. Apple later accused Rubin of drawing a little too much inspiration for Android from
his time at Apple.
As the brains behind the Mac operating system, Bertrand Serlet was widely considered to be
one of Apple's true geniuses. Serlet left the company in mid-2011 and has since been working
with a couple other ex-Apple employees on a startup in Palo Alto called Upthere, which is
working to create a cloud OS that will change the way people store their files online.
Meeteor, a professional networking startup, was founded by a former Mac project manager.
Meeteor is looking to take professional networking to the next level by helping users expand
their networks by get introduced to people who might be useful to know. The startup was
cofounded by Chris Lee, a former Apple project manager who oversaw the development of
several Mac OS X releases.
Dave Morin is probably best known for his impact on social networking, first as an early
Facebook employee working on initiatives like Facebook Connect and more recently as the
founder of Path, a startup that strives to be a more intimate social network. But before he
worked in either of these companies, Morin managed higher education marketing at Apple.
Flipboard, a social news app, was co-created by a senior Apple software engineer. Evan Doll
worked a
