General Motors has hired veteran tech industry leader Mike Abbott to be Vice President of Software to lead a new end-to-end software organization as GM accelerates its technology-driven transformation to a connected EV manufacturing company.
Abbott, 50, will take over the new role on May 22, reporting directly to GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.
“As a member of the senior leadership team, Abbott will lead a new integrated end-to-end software organization focused on the development of vehicle and enterprise software technologies and solutions, and delivery of digital services and features to retail and commercial customers,” GM said in the official announcement.
The newly created team will bring together three now separate software functions within the company, including Software Defined Vehicle and Operating System, Information and Digital Technology, and Digital Business.
Abbott brings extensive technology industry experience in cloud computing, storage, networking, security and technology industry practices at large scale. Prior to joining GM, he was vice president of Apple’s Cloud Services team since 2018, in which he led a team responsible for the development of core infrastructure for all of Apple’s cloud-based services including iCloud, iMessage, Private Relay, Mail and account security. In addition to storage, networking and computing, his team created products for Apple’s Education and Enterprise categories.
“We have entered the next phase of our technology driven transformation focused on rapidly scaling new EV models and our Ultifi software platform, which will drive faster innovation and enable new and exciting customer experiences,” said Barra.
“Mike’s experience as a founder and entrepreneur coupled with his proven track record creating and delivering some of the market’s most compelling software-defined solutions for consumers and companies make him an excellent fit at GM.”
A Bay Area native
Abbott grew up in Saratoga, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry in 1994 from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and did some work toward receiving a Ph.D from the University of Washington.
In 1994, Abbott joined the prestigious SRI International research company. After his time at the University of Washington, Abbott became a research scientist with GeneTrace Systems and held other positions in the company. In 2001, Abbott started Composite Software, which was later acquired by Cisco. He spent some time as General Manager of Microsoft’s .NET services and later ran the webOS software development team at Palm Inc.
Abbott moved to Twitter as Vice President of Engineering in 2010. According to his online biography, “Abbott is credited with rebuilding and solidifying Twitter’s infrastructure, growing the engineering team from 80 to more than 350 engineers in less than a year and a half, and scaling Twitter’s architecture to support hundreds of millions of daily tweets.”
Later, Abbott joined Kleiner Perkins as a partner on its digital team focused on investments in sectors including mobile and cloud computing. After a time on the money side, he went back to research at Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL) as a visiting scholar focused on computer vision and other products that have global benefits.
Abbott has also led teams responsible for developing innovative, secure, and high-performance applications and services. He was at Apple Computer since 2018.
“I’m a product person at heart, so as the transformation of transportation quickly accelerates, I know that software is the catalyst for redefining experiences for consumers and enterprises like never before,” said Abbott.
“GM is playing a pivotal role in this shift and I’m excited to join the team and bring my experience in software to bear to not only take advantage of the massive opportunities that lay ahead for the company but to help change the world.”
For its part, GM has underscored the importance of software for years. In 2021, GM President Mark Reuss said, “Our products are a platform for the software we are putting on top of the hardware,” adding the new employees GM is bringing on board to create the software understand and appreciate the shift taking place in the industry. Abbott’s hire is clearly intended to integrate the various efforts GM is undertaking along these lines.