Apple Exec Who Quit Over Return-To-Work Policy Jumps Ship To Google

An Apple Inc AAPL executive who put in his resignation over the tech giant’s return-to-work policy last week has already found his next opportunity at rival Alphabet Inc GOOGL GOOG subsidiary Google.

What Happened: Ian Goodfellow, the former director of machine learning at Apple, is joining Google’s DeepMind unit, reported Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter.

Goodfellow is joining DeepMind as an individual contributor, according to the sources of Bloomberg.

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Why It Matters: Goodfellow was with Apple for a little over three years, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

Notably, the machine learning specialist hadn’t updated his profile to reflect employment with Google at press time.

This is not Goodfellow’s first stint at Google. He worked as a software engineering intern at the tech giant between June and September 2013 and was a research scientist and a senior research scientist between July 2014 and March 2016.

The former Apple executive said in a staff memo that he believed strongly that "more flexibility would have been the best policy" for his team.

Apple employees have been threatening mass resignations over the company’s return to office policy. 

Price Action: On Tuesday, Apple shares closed 2.5% higher at $149.24 in the regular session. On the same day, Alphabet Class A shares closed 1.8% higher at $2,329.46, while the company’s Class C shares ended the day 1.7% higher at $2,334.03, according to data from Benzinga Pro.

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Photo via Ian Goodfellow on Wikimedia