I didn't see this coming but it seems the reason Ben Gomes is now head of Google search is because John Giannandrea who replaced Amit Singhal a couple years ago was not necessarily fired or demoted but rather he is going to Apple.
The NY Times reports he is going to head up machine learning and AI at Apple now, which is what he did mostly at Google. John Giannandrea will report directly to Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, which is a big high level position at Apple.
“Our technology must be infused with the values we all hold dear,” Mr. Cook said Tuesday morning in an email to staff members obtained by The New York Times. “John shares our commitment to privacy and our thoughtful approach as we make computers even smarter and more personal.”
Google uses a ton of aggregated data to make search smarter, Apple is all about privacy and it will be interesting to see how they handle this with a smaller data set (i.e. only one person's data).
This should make this a bit more spicy between Google and Apple.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
