A senior Apple executive who quit his job in protest of the company, urging staff to return to the office three days a week, has joined Google, according to a report – where work from home is allowed.
Ian Goodfellow, Apple’s director of machine learning, is believed to be the oldest employee to resign as a result of the plan.
His resignation was announced on May 7.
On Wednesday, 11 days later, sources told Bloomberg that he was joining Google to work on their DeepMind project.
Google asks most employees to be in the office three days a week, but exceptions may be allowed. Apple’s policy is more limited, with no exceptions to the three-day rule.
Apple announced Tuesday that it has postponed the requirement to be in the office three days a week and will stick to the current two-day agreement, blaming the growing COVID case in California for the change in heart.
But Goodfellow’s departure caused waves in Silicon Valley. Many said it was a reflection of widespread dissatisfaction with Apple’s forced return to the office, which was seen as excessive and inconsistent with other technology companies.
Ian Goodfellow, Apple’s director of machine learning, left in early May to protest their policies of forcing people to return to their offices three days a week. Apple announced on Tuesday that it was suspending the policy for three days a week, but would continue to force people to return two days a week. Goodfellow was announced to have joined Google on Wednesday
Google has abducted their former employee, Ian Goodfellow, who left Apple earlier this month after asking all employees to be at their offices three days a week. On Tuesday, Apple succumbed to pressure and said it would stick to two days a week for now, but Goodfellow had already left
WHAT IS THE GOOGLE DEEPMIND AI PROJECT?
DeepMind was founded in London in 2010 and was acquired by Google in 2014.
There are now additional research centers in Edmonton and Montreal, Canada, and a DeepMind Applied team in Mountain View, California.
DeepMind is on a mission to expand the boundaries of AI by developing programs that can learn to solve any complex problem without the need to be trained on how.
If it succeeds, the company believes that this will be one of the most important and widely useful scientific achievements ever made.
The company has hit the headlines for a number of its creations, including software it created that taught you how to play and win in 49 completely different Atari titles, with only raw pixels as input.
For the first time in the world, AlphaGo faced the world’s best player in G, one of the most sophisticated and intuitive games ever created, with more positions than there are atoms in the universe – and won.
Goodfellow’s move to Google was described by Bloomberg as a “coup” for their DeepMind division, which attracted him as an individual contributor.
DeepMind, which was founded in London in 2010 before being acquired by Google in 2014, is known for creating an artificial intelligence program that defeated human professional player in Go Lee Sedol, the world champion, in a match of five games in 2016
In 2020, the company announced that it had solved a 50-year-old problem in biology known as the “protein folding problem” – knowing how the amino acid sequence of a protein dictates its 3D structure.
DeepMind claims to have solved the problem with 92 percent accuracy by training a neural network with 170,000 known protein sequences and their various structures.
Goodfellow is known as one of the greatest researchers in machine learning and worked as a senior researcher at Google until 2019.
The technical news site The Verge, which revealed the news of Apple’s departure, described Goodfellow as the most cited expert in machine learning, a type of artificial intelligence that includes learning computer algorithms that can be automatically improved by experience and experience. by using data. As a result, applications become better at predicting results.
Goodfellow joined Apple in March 2019 and describes himself on LinkedIn as “a leader in the machine learning industry.”
The technology analyst has been dubbed the “father of common racing networks, or GANs,” according to the 9to5Mac website, a pioneering technology that can be used to generate fake media content.
His salary is unclear, but he is likely to earn well over $ 270,000 a year, according to Insider and Glassdoor.com, given his directorial status and high profile in the world of technology.
After graduating from Stanford in 2009 with a degree in computer science, Goodfellow studied for a doctorate in machine learning at the University of Montreal.
He worked for Google on their Google Brain team, then joined OpenAI, a research institute founded in 2015 by Elon Musk and several others.
Goodfellow returned to Google and then joined Apple.
He was 34 at the time he joined Apple and was described by The Verge as “young to be an AI researcher with so much influence.”
They described his hiring as a coup for Apple.
On April 11, the company began imposing one day a week in the office – a requirement that increased to two days on May 2.
By May 23, all staff had to be at their desks three days a week.
A survey of Apple employees on April 13-19 found that 67 percent said they were dissatisfied with the return policy, according to Fortune.
And Goodfellow, in his resignation letter, said he would not.
“I strongly believe that more flexibility would be the best policy for my team,” he said, according to The Verge.
Pictured is Apples headquarters in Cupertino, California
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, was seen at the company’s Cupertino headquarters
An Apple employee speculates that leaving Goodfellow comes before a potential announcement that the company will increase the requirement for personal work to five days a week.
“Everyone and their grandmother knows that Apple is using the pilot as a springboard to 5 days back in the office,” wrote an Apple employee of Blind, who checks employment through corporate email addresses.
“Ian probably knew this was coming, and he left.”
Apple CEO Tim Cook is adamant about returning the office to his employees – unlike other companies in Silicon Valley.
In early March, he wrote to employees that they needed to prepare for their return.
“In the coming weeks and months, we have the opportunity to combine the best of what we have learned about telecommuting with the irreplaceable benefits of personal collaboration,” Cook said in a note, according to Bloomberg.
“It is important, as always, to support each other during this transition, through the challenges we face as a team and around the world.”
Cook admitted that not everyone is excited about the prospect.
“I know for many of you that returning to the office is a long-awaited cornerstone and a positive sign that we can engage more fully with colleagues who play such an important role in our lives,” Cook said.
For others, this can also be a disturbing change.
Following the announcement, employees in internal forums promised to leave.
“I don’t care if I ever get back to work here,” an Apple employee told Blind’s corporate bulletin board, according to The New York Post.
“I will come in to say hello and meet everyone, because I haven’t done it since I started, and then I will resign when I get home.
“I already know that I will not be able to cope with the trip to work and sitting around for 8 hours.”
Another Apple employee responded with laughing emojis and wrote, “I’ll do the same.”
A third replied, “Hell, YES, my man, let’s do this!” Damn it.
Twitter, by contrast, has decided to allow employees to work remotely forever if they choose – although that could change with Musk’s new property.
In March, Parag Agraval, chief executive, told employees that his predecessor Jack Dorsey’s policy of allowing employees to work remotely forever would remain.
Twitter CEO Parag Agraval (left) and co-founder Jack Dorsey (right) support remote work
Elon Musk, who agreed to a Twitter deal, mocked the company’s policy of allowing employees to work remotely forever, and some believe it could change that once it takes over.
“As we reopen, our approach remains the same,” Agraval said.
“Where you feel most productive and creative is where you will work, and that includes working from home full-time forever.
“Office every day? This also works. A few days in the office, a few days from home? Of course.’
Slack followed suit, allowing remote work permanently.
On Facebook, parent company Meta announced in the summer of 2020 that all full-time employees can apply for work from home if their work allows.
Facebook executives have taken full advantage of the agreement, according to The Wall Street Journal, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg spending considerable time away from Menlo Park headquarters and more time in Hawaii.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, insists he return to the entire staff office three days a week
Alex Schultz, chief marketing officer, plans to move to the United Kingdom, according to a company spokesman, while Guy Rosen, the company’s vice president of integrity, will move to Israel.
Naomi Glate, Meta’s product manager and one of its longest-serving employees, has moved to New York, while Adam Moseri, Instagram’s chief executive, works remotely from places including Hawaii, Los Angeles and Cape Cod.
Apple and Google are extraordinary, with Google asking most workers to return to the office three days a week in April on March 4.
Google employees can request remote work if their work allows.
The Google order includes a warning that employees could cut wages if they leave the San Francisco Bay Area or New York for cheaper parts of the country.
An open letter signed by more than 1,050 former and current Apple employees called on company leaders to rethink their plans.
“You described …
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