Humane has announced that Patrick Gates, former Apple Internet Services executive, has joined the startup as Chief Technology Officer.

According to the announcement, “Patrick led the development of iconic Apple services like iCloud, iMessage and FaceTime. During his 13 years at Apple, he oversaw technical design, built critical infrastructure, and led the teams for numerous industry-defining features across all platforms.

“A Silicon Valley veteran, Patrick did research at Sun Microsystems and built developer frameworks at NeXT before his time at Apple. He is passionate about building and scaling teams and technologies with an unrelenting focus on customer privacy and security.”

Gates joins a startup founded by two other former Apple employees, Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno. Chaudhri is a designer who “spent over 20 years at Apple imagining and creating some of the world’s most beloved consumer products, like the Macintosh, iPod, iPad, Apple Watch and iPhone.” Bongiorno was a Director of Software Engineering and “responsible for all software project management for iOS and macOS and also played a key leadership role in the execution of critical projects such as the launch of the original iPad.”

While Humane is still in stealth mode, the addition of Gates as CTO is a big win for the startup. Together, the three former Apple employees give the young company a significant creative pedigree.