Mark Gurman reports from Bloomberg on a Apple’s new signing: Josh Elman, an expert investor, known to be one of those who knew how to put money into the apps that would later become TikTok and Discord. Elman also served as vice president of products in the Robinhood stock trading application. We can see it in the image above, during a TechCrunch event.
Elman’s new job at Apple will, in his own words, be “help consumers discover the best apps for them“. He will use his experience by investing in applications to detect possible successes and will know how to recommend them to users.
Protect one of Apple’s biggest revenue streams
2 / I am joining Apple to work on @Applications store and help customers discover the best apps for them.
– Josh Elman 🇺🇸 (@joshelman) November 30, 2020
4 / As part of th is transition, I will take a step back from some of my boards of directors and active investments. I wanted to thank the founders who welcomed me on these trips:
– Josh Elman 🇺🇸 (@joshelman) November 30, 2020
Elman will have another job to try improve the relationship between the App Store and developers, something Apple is doing its homework after cutting its commissions in half for all the developers who charge less than a million dollars a year. Maybe the groundwork is also being laid so that controversies like Spotify and Epic Games don’t repeat themselves.
Elman will cease to sit on certain boards of directors (Medium and Discord among them) so that there are no conflicts of interest in his new position. We will notice the work of this investor as there is news about the changes in the App Store.
