Why A.I. Researchers at Google Got Desks Next to the Boss

Why A.I. Researchers at Google Got Desks Next to the Boss
Ms. Greene, who was the chief executive of the software company VMware, said she had always
made a point of sitting beside the top engineers because they saw the company’s future.
At Google’s Silicon Valley headquarters, the chief executive, Sundar Pichai, now shares
a floor with Google Brain, a research lab dedicated to artificial intelligence.
thinks a lot about where people are sitting — who they can walk around
and have casual conversations with,” said Diane Greene, who oversees Google’s cloud computing team and sits on the board of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.
“It is a very significant statement that he has moved that group right next him.”
Google is placing big bets on the A. I.
being explored by researchers like Mr. Goodfellow.
“And a lot of these businesses are concluding that the speed of technological innovation should be the heart of everything.”
A year ago, the Google Brain team of mathematicians, coders
and hardware engineers sat in a small office building on the other side of the company’s campus.
It sits directly outside the office of the company’s chief executive, Patrick Byrne.