Engineers are not simply interchangeable. Their expertise and experience are a very important part of who they are. A lead engineer can have a significant impact on the direction of a company, even one the size of Apple.

When a important engineer leaves, sometimes a lot more end up following. Or at least their team members more open to looking at other offers.

That'll be the interesting thing.

9 women can't make a baby in a month

Not sure why parent is getting downvotes for a more gender-counterbalanced quip about The Mythical Man Month, which is entirely relevant to this discussion.

Well, one is physically impossible while the other is theoretically improbable. So there's that.

not yet at least

True true, but I'll spout off this: I hope it works out to some key decision makers realizing they need to rethink somethings - purely as a thing I wish would happen.

Lattner was in the top few of the world in his research and what he created, not just one among Apple's "top 500".

Lattner isn't talking loudly. He's barely talking about it at all. His only announcement about it was a brief aside in an email about a change in the Swift open source leadership.