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Apple Hires a Few Dozen Employees From Silicon Valley Data Science Startup

Friday January 19, 2018 11:18 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple has hired several data scientists from Silicon Valley Data Science, a consulting firm that offers data engineering and data science services, reports Bloomberg.

A few dozen employees from Silicon Valley Data Science joined Apple in December and January to help the company better use its data to improve its advertising efforts. According to the Silicon Valley Data Science website, the startup helped businesses improve customer retention, increase engagement, improve conversion rates, develop new revenue-generating data products, streamline operations, and more.


At Apple, the team will work on ad-related analytics to bolster Apple's advertising efforts. One area of focus could be better optimizing App Store ads.

Founder and CEO of Silicon Valley Data Science Sanjay Mathur is one of the employees that has taken a position as Apple. His LinkedIn profile now says that he leads "strategy and analytics initiatives for a group at Apple."

Several other LinkedIn profiles from former Silicon Valley Data Science employees now list data scientist positions at Apple. The company's former CTO, for example, now works on "Algorithms," while the former Head of Data Science is now Apple's "Principal Data Scientist."

While the Silicon Valley Data Science website is still up, the company shut down in December and its services are no longer offered.

Tags: Apple ads, Apple acquisition
[ 19 comments ]


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fairuz
14 months ago
I don't blame them, but it's sad that so much research and top-notch talent is going into... advertising.
Rating: 6 Votes
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DevNull0
14 months ago

A few dozen employees from Silicon Valley Data Science joined Apple in December and January to help the company better use its data to improve its advertising efforts.


Hey, Timmy....instead of profiling every scrap of data you can about me to manipulate me to buying more of your crap, how about hire a few dozen software engineers to cull the rapidly multiplying bugs in every single product you make.

That would be a lot more successful at getting me to buy Apple products than targeted ads for your current crop of bug-filled crap.

On the other hand, going by the atrocious quality of your ads for the past year, I welcome better targeted ads. If I never have to see another "what's a computer" ad again, it's almost worth giving you all my personal info and a psych profile.
Rating: 5 Votes
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DevNull0
14 months ago

I am kind of surprised Apple would think they need any kind of help with advertising, given their ever increasing profits.

Why they aren't hiring more software engineers to take stress off that one team and make things right, is puzzling.


Tim Cook is more like a John Sculley. Product development is pretty irrelevant and it's all about advertising and the fashion image. As Sculley learned, that road is paved with gold and platinum but dead-ends around a sharp bend.

When Apple is so profitable, software engineers don't generate revenue, marketing people do.

Also, to clarify one thing, "a consulting firm that offers data engineering and data science services" is not about advertising, it's about analyzing every scrap of data that they possibly can to build unique profiles of each user. Then they use that information to provide targeted advertising and promos. Google are the masters of this and that's why they have a reputation as evil invaders of privacy. Amazon also excels in that space. It's troubling to see Apple moving in that direction as they are, up until now at least, the one refuge from that. I have been happy to pay the Apple tax in $$$ all these years rather than the google tax in personal data.
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If Apple’s products are crap why are you buying them?


Oh, I missed where it's listed in the forum rules that you have to love every single thing Apple does to be here.

It is certainly not good for the consumer if Apple is jumping full force into the data mining of personal data game.

And you don't know why I'm using Apple products. It's possible I have to use Apple products for professional reasons. It's also possible that I still believe Apple are the best products on the market despite their current lack of quality control. It's also possible I'm so vested in the Apple eco system that leaving is no easy task.

The reality is I like my MBP better than another other laptop on the market and I'm not planning on leaving the Mac any time soon, but the software is far from flawless and far buggier than it was a few years ago. Frankly I'd also own a mac desktop too if they still made a reasonably powerful, reasonably priced desktop without a built in screen. I've owned a lot of mac minis ending the the 2012 i7 quad core.

Just read every article about their software releases the past few months, they're riddled with bugs. You'd really rather live in a world where nobody is allowed to talk about that and just pretend everything Apple does is perfect and wonderful? Thankfully we don't live in that world.
Rating: 3 Votes
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mtneer
14 months ago
Uh oh. I hope this isn't the first crack in Apple's current privacy-first stance.
Rating: 2 Votes
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Soccertess
14 months ago

I don't blame them, but it's sad that so much research and top-notch talent is going into... advertising.


so true. I think something is also severely wrong with Tim, the fish rots from the head as they say.
Rating: 1 Votes
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asdf072
14 months ago

If Apple’s products are crap why are you buying them?


Because the alternative is Windows.
Rating: 1 Votes

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