OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei left the company in 2020 to start his own venture called Nothing. The British phone maker now has a smartphone in its portfolio and several audio wearables. Its next phone is due to launch soon as its first flagship handset.
As it turns out, Nothing still has strong ties with OnePlus to this day, technically at least. This is because a large part of the Nothing team is from OnePlus and the company is hiring even more high-profile workers from the Chinese company for its next phone.
The startup successfully hired several former senior members of OnePlus who played pivotal roles in establishing the brand. This strategic move aims to ensure the success of the upcoming Nothing Phone 2.
Inverse’s source, who is familiar with the operations of Nothing, disclosed that a significant portion of the software and hardware teams at Nothing comprises former OnePlus employees. The anonymous source revealed that approximately 70% of the software team and 30% of the hardware team have been recruited from OnePlus.
Kyle Kiang, previously the Chief Marketing Officer of OnePlus, has joined Nothing as the Vice President of North America. In his new role, he will spearhead the global launch of the Nothing Phone 2.
Another notable addition to the Nothing team is Shawn Liu, one of the co-founders of Nothing, who previously served as the head of mobile product development at OnePlus. Liu, along with a team of former OnePlus software leads, is reportedly involved in the design of the Nothing OS.
The aim is to bring the same design philosophy that was instrumental in developing OxygenOS at OnePlus to the new Nothing OS. Furthermore, Cookie Xu and Sam Lee, both former OnePlus software leads, have assumed important responsibilities at Nothing, focusing on software products and mobile software respectively.
