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Swift Creator and Former Apple Engineer Chris Lattner Joins Google's AI Team

Monday August 14, 2017 12:28 PM PDT by Juli Clover

Chris Lattner, once responsible for leading the teams behind Xcode and Swift, made headlines earlier this year when he left Apple to work at Tesla.

At the time, Lattner told MacRumors the opportunity to work on Tesla's self-driving project with the Tesla Autopilot team was "irresistible." Lattner lasted just six months at Tesla, however, and left the company in June.

"Chris just wasn't the right fit for Tesla and we've decided to make a change," the company told The Wall Street Journal after Lattner exited. Lattner went on to announce on Twitter that he was seeking companies interested in a "seasoned engineering leader," which has apparently led to a new role at Google.

Lattner today announced that he has joined the Google Brain team to work on artificial intelligence. Google Brain is Google's research unit, and Lattner is expected to work on TensorFlow, Google's open-source machine learning software.

Tags: Google, Swift

Top Rated Comments

adamjackson

111 months ago

A company-jumper. The grass is always greener on the other side. Until he finds out it isn't (lasted barely 6 months at Tesla).

I know a lot of Silicon Valley 'company-jumpers' and Chris is not one of them. He was at Apple from 2005 to 2017. Most people I know are at a new startup every 6-12 months. Just because after 12 years at Apple, he was not a good fit with Teslas (ethos, culture, programming, management, whatever it was) and is now at Google doesn't make him a company jumper.

Now, 5 years from now, if he's worked at 10 different companies, your opinion may be valid.

Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)

now i see it

111 months ago

Lots of companies look all nice & yummy from the outside. Then when you finally do get hired, you soon find out about all the petty infighting & incompetent hostile managers. Been there. Done that. Jumping companies is very risky cuz you never know what snake pit you'll end up in. Could very well be worse than the hell-hole you're already in.

Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Zirel

111 months ago

He did a very wrong move the moment he stepped out of Apple’s door.

Now he’s working on better ways to data mine people’s emails and photos, and serve more annoying ads on YouTube.

Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Westside guy

111 months ago

A company-jumper. The grass is always greener on the other side. Until he finds out it isn't (lasted barely 6 months at Tesla).

Here's his full employment history since leaving the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

2005 - January 2017: Apple
January 2017 - June 2017: Tesla
Hired August 2017 by Google

Yeah, that doesn't really fit the "company jumper" profile. It looks like he just didn't fit well at Tesla.

Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Asarien

111 months ago

Don't know why he had to even bother posting anything on Twitter when Google gladly takes any of Apple's former employees.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Solomani

111 months ago

A company-jumper. The grass is always greener on the other side. Until he finds out it isn't (lasted barely 6 months at Tesla).

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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