Apple’s search engine team leaves company to rejoin Google: Report – Times of India

Apple was reportedly developing its search engine which was expected to be equivalent to Google’s counterpart. The company was also planning to launch a search engine to compete with the likes of Chrome. To develop its web search technology, the Cupertino giant acquired a company named Laserlike four years ago. Before Laserlike was formed in 2015, its founders Anand Shukla, Srinivasan Venkatachary and Steven Baker were all Google employees.
Now, a new report claims that all three Laserlike founders have rejoined Google leaving Apple’s project under a cloud of uncertainty. Laserlike was bought by Apple in 2018 and the deal was made public only the next year. Post the acquisition, Laserlike’s founders used to lead a search team at Apple that included 200 employees.

Laserlike founders’ new role in Google
According to a report by The Information, Srinivasan Venkatachary has rejoined Google as the company’s new vice president of engineering. Venkatachary reports to Google’s senior vice president of technology and society, James Manyika.
The other two founders of Laserlike — Baker and Shukla are also a part of Manyika’s team. However, the report didn’t confirm if all three founders left Apple at the same time or if Venkatachary was the last one to leave the company.
As per the report, another unnamed source with the details of the move has also predicted that Apple is four years away from launching a Google rival.

In 2020, after the launch of iOS 14, Siri Suggestions were reportedly using Apple’s Spotlight Search service, instead of passing through Google. During this time, the rumours about Apple’s plans of developing its proprietary search engine got a boost.
However, this is not the first time staff(s) linked with long and involved projects like search have moved between Apple and Google. In 2018, Apple poached Google’s John Giannandrea who was working at the latter company for eight years and left as the head of Machine Learning. Giannandrea is currently the senior vice president of Machine Learning and AI Strategy at Apple.