Apple bolsters smart home initiative with former CEO of failed smart lock startup

Sam Jadallah used to lead Otto, a smart lock company that went belly up. They tried to sell a US$700 smart lock, but that premium device didn't reach the market. Jadallah claims a mystery buyer pulled out of the deal at the last minute. Now, he will be leading what looks like a new smart home initiative at Apple. A rather unexpected move, but it looks like Apple wants to give its smart home segment another try. Apple and Jadallah haven’t commented on the report about his hire, but he has confirmed that he’s joined the team.

Source: The Verge

Facebook product director joins Uber as head of driver product

Under Uber’s current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, the ride-hailing service has placed heavy emphasis on its drivers. But the company has been without a head for its driver product division since December, when Aaron Schildkrout left after the company wrapped its 180 days of change driver campaign. That just changed as former Facebook product director for video and Facebook Live, Daniel Danker, joins Uber. He will serve as a senior director and head of driver product. Danker will be in charge of planning, strategy, and execution for the said division. He has been working in Silicon Valley for a while already. Between 2000 and 2010, he worked in a couple of roles at Microsoft and left when he was a director of development and operations. He found his way to BBC in 2010 and then went to Shazam where he served as chief product officer for almost three years.

“Drivers are the heart of the Uber experience, and Daniel’s passion for our mission and deep product knowledge will ensure we continue to improve and innovate on their behalf,” Uber Head of Product Manik Gupta told TechCrunch in a statement.

Google snaps up key Apple chip designer

While we don’t know what Google has up its sleeve, its latest hire gives us an idea of what we could possibly expect from the tech company. Google just hired John Bruno, the founder and head of Apple’s silicon competitive analysis group, which is basically the team that helped give the iPhone and iPad processors and edge over competition. It isn’t clear yet what he’ll do for Google but his job title, as seen on LinkedIn is listed as “System Architect.” Bruno began his career at ATI and later became chief engineer at AMD, while there he led the design of Fusion processors.

Google has been taking in new talent, including veterans from Qualcomm, which makes it look like they’re looking to create more custom processors. The only chip that is currently made in-house is the Pixel 2’s Pixel Visual Core imaging chip. We can only speculate if Google is looking to create a full-fledged processor for its phones or build more specialized chips to make their products stand out more. We’re sure we’ll find out soon enough what the company is up to.

Source: Engadget

PepsiCo’s Tony West is now Uber’s chief legal officer

Lonnie Tague/United States Department of Justice

Uber’s newest hire has a lot of work to do. The ride-sharing company just hired Tony West as its new chief legal officer. West has served as PepsiCo’s general counsel and was the former assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice under former President Barack Obama. He comes in at a time when Uber is facing a series of investigations by the US government (including the DOJ) and a major lawsuit with Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving car unit. West replaces Salle Yoo, who has been Uber’s chief legal officer since 2012. He officially becomes the company’s top lawyer next month.

Uber’s CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced the hire in an email to staff on Friday. He wrote, “As a former federal prosecutor and senior Department of Justice official in the Obama Administration, [West is] well equipped to handle the investigations into our past practices. And at Pepsi, he has emphasized diversity on his team and across the company. But perhaps most importantly, Pepsi has been named one of the world’s most ethical companies 10 years in a row,” he continued. “Under Tony’s leadership, I’m confident that we will one day join this list.”

Source: Recode