Earlier this month, the resignation of Ian Goodfellow, Apple’s Director of Machine Learning, have caused a lot of hype. The executive apparently chose to leave the company after it refused to allow employees to continue working remotely full-time. Now, however, he seems to have found another occupation. And if you’re wondering where, here’s the answer: DeepMinda subsidiary of Alphabet.
Ian Goodfellow passa a DeepMind
Deep Mind is a well-known machine learning company, acquired by Google in 2014. And this week it has made a lot of talk about itself, not only because it announced the launch of a multimodal multitasking artificial intelligence system called Gato, but also because it seems to be the Ian Goodfellow’s new company. In fact, we still don’t know what role it will play. But what we do know is which one of the best known machine learning researcherswhich means Apple will suffer the loss enormously.
In a letter sent to the company some time ago, Goodfellow explained his decision to leave the company after it required employees to go back to work in person. “I strongly believe that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team,” she said. At the moment, Apple employees are required to work in their office at least two days a week. A commitment that seems destined to increase in the coming months. In this regard, it must be said that Ian Goodfellow was not the only one who was against Apple’s decision.
In May, a group of employees gathered under the name “Apple Together” wrote a letter to Apple’s executive team to argue that the hybrid work plan “does not recognize flexible working and is driven only by fear.” After all, other companies in the industry such as Meta and Google have implemented more flexible work options that may appeal to Apple employees who are not interested in office work policies. Just like Goodfellow did.