Artificial Intelligence is important, and tech companies are in fierce competition to hire the best talent. Earlier this month, Ian Goodfellow, a Dire

Apple Won't Go Back to the Office

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2022-05-20 19:00:05

Artificial Intelligence is important, and tech companies are in fierce competition to hire the best talent. Earlier this month, Ian Goodfellow, a Director of Machine Learning at Apple, decided to quit. Why? Because Apple tried to force him and his team to spend three days a week at the office. "I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team," Goodfellow reportedly wrote in a parting note to staff.

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that Goodfellow is joining Google's DeepMind division. "Goodfellow is the most senior employee known to leave over the company's return-to-office policy, but more departures are expected" once the company's new 3-days-a-week policy goes into effect.

Apple's new policy was announced in April but is yet to be implemented. Earlier this month, nearly 1500 Apple employees signed a petition asking the company to "let go of the rigid policies... Stop trying to control how often you can see us in the office." The petitioners ask the company to trust them and let their direct managers — rather than a single policy —figure out how and where they work.

The petition is compelling and includes a famous quote from Steve Jobs: "It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do." The petitioner's closing statement drives this point home:

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