Apple Inc (AAPL)

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Avie Tevanian to Leave Apple

Adios Avie

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/detail?blogid=19&entry_id=3821

Avadis "Avie" Tevanian, Apple Computer's Chief Technology Officer, is leaving the firm to "pursue other interests," the company confirmed Monday. Tevanian, who came to Apple in 1997 from his previous post working for Steve Jobs at NeXT, played a key role in developing Mac OS X, the company's widely adored operating system.

Although Apple wouldn't say what Tevanian's plans are, Vice President of Worldwide Corporate Communications Katie Cotton wrote in an e-mail that, "He plans to take some time off in the interim. He hasn't left yet, though. His last official day is March 31."

Tevanian, who is considered an operating systems whiz and, is also a Carnegie Mellon graduate. This was culled from an interview he gave the Pittsburgh university's computer science department:

Question: Did you ever have a moment of epiphany while a student at Carnegie Mellon?

Tevanian: Yes. The day I met Steve Jobs. NeXT, the company he was CEO of then, was very interested in using the research we had done (the Mach operating system) and this was when I heard just how interested he was in it. I ended that day with a feeling of - it is time for me to get in gear, finish my Ph.D, and get out in the working world. The end result was that I made it through the Ph.D. program in only 4.5 years - which is very short for the CMU CS Ph.D. program - especially in the systems area.

Just another example of the Steve Jobs school of motivation. Maybe Avie had enough motivation after nearly 10 years?

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0306tevanian.html

March 27, 2006 - Apple's software engineering chief of nearly a decade, Avadis "Avie" Tevanian, Jr., will leave the company at the end of March, the San Francisco Chronicle reported tonight on its Web site.

Apple confirmed Tevanian's departure today, according to a post by Chronicle reporter Alan T. Saracevic on the newspaper's technology blog, The Tech Chronicles.

Tevanian will leave to "pursue other interests" according to the Chronicle. "He plans to take some time off in the interim," Vice President of Worldwide Corporate Communications Katie Cotton told the newspaper in an email. "He hasn't left yet, though. His last official day is March 31."