High-profile employee quits Apple over IT giant's return-to-work policy

A top executive at Apple, Ian Goodfellow, who is the iPhone maker’s director of machine learning, has put in papers because of the company’s in-person work policy. In a note to staff, US-based Goodfellow reportedly told his colleagues that he strongly believes that “more flexibility would have been the best policy for his team.

With the Covid-19 pandemic subsiding in severity, companies have started to reframe work policies to bring employees back to office. It is no secret that many are not convinced with returning to work yet and are looking for more flexibility.

Apple has ordered all corporate employees to come back to office for 3 days every week, New York Post reported. This policy is more stringent compared to other major tech firms like Google, Amazon, and Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram owner Meta.

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Goodfellow, a noted computer scientist, engineer and executive, was a top employee at Apple who joined the iPhone maker from Google in 2019. He was likely the top expert for AI and ML at Apple. A Stanford university alumnus, he is known for inventing a machine learning framework called GAN (Generative adversarial network).

Ian Goodfellow, Apple’s director of machine learning, is leaving the company due to its return to work policy. In a note to staff, he said “I believe strongly that more flexibility would have been the best policy for my team.” He was likely the company’s most cited ML expert.

— Zoë Schiffer (@ZoeSchiffer) May 7, 2022

On one social media website popular in the US among Apple employees, one of them quoted Goodfellow as having said, “I’m leaving for many reasons … but Apple’s return to office policy is the biggest single reason.”

The tech giant reportedly has introduced a policy under which its employees are required to work from the office on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. It has also permitted employees to work remotely for four weeks per year, it reported.

As per US media, the in-person policy of Apple has resulting in some corporate employees leaving the company.

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