AI Talent News Roundup: Oracle Creates AI Department; Databricks Appoints new Board Members; Amazon to Hire More AI Jobs

February 4, 2021

This is the TalentSeer AI News Roundup for the first half of February 2021. You can find the most relevant and recent news about the AI talent, aimed specifically at tech leaders, VCs, and members of the AI field. Subscribe here to receive these roundups twice a month via email.

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Don Johnson, VP at Oracle, to Run a New Cloud and AI Department

Executive VP at Oracle, Don Johnson, will be running a new department named “Oracle Cloud Platform & AI Services”. This department is an extension of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, which Don Johnson was originally the head of; it will not be replacing it. This emphasizes Oracle’s decision to focus on cloud and AI as they move forward. Before he was at Oracle, Don Johnson worked at Amazon as a Principal Engineer and a Software Engineer. [Read More]

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Former Google VP of IoT Injong Rhee Joins AI Agriculture Startup Bowery Farming as CTO

Bowery Farming, a New York-based AI agriculture startup, has hired Injong Rhee as their CTO. Injong Rhee, previously Google’s VP of Internet of Things and CTO at Samsung Electronics, will be helping develop machine learning tools to enhance crop yields at reduced rates and improve Bowery’s computer-vision system. Bowery Farming has raised over $170 million in venture capital from Amazon Consumer CEO Jeff Wilke, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and venture capital firms such as Temasek and General Catylist. [Read More]

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Former Element.AI Sales Executive Dan Wilson Joins Data Science Company WorldQuant Predictive

New York-based AI data science prediction company, WorldQuant, appoints Dan Wilson as Head of Sales. Dan Wilson has extensive experience in AI, as he was Head of Sales at Element.AI, VP of Sales at Lectra, and Industry Manager at Siemens. He will be working on developing new business models and driving the value of the company’s predictive services. [Read More]

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Databricks Appoints Industry Veterans Elena Donio and Jonathan Chadwick to Board of Directors

San Francisco-based data and AI public cloud company, Databricks, has appointed Elena Donio and Jonathan Chadwick to their board of directors. Elena Donio also currently serves as a board member at cloud communication company Twillo, and was previously a board member at compression software and data company PayScale before its 2019 acquisition. Jonathan Chadwick is also a board member at Zoom, Stripe, and cloud-based solutions company ServiceNow. Both of the new board members will be helping Databricks as they enter their next phase to continue growing and scaling upwards. [Read More]

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Amazon to Hire 3,000 jobs in Boston, in AI and Software Development, Among Other Areas

Amazon will be expanding its workforce by 3,000 employees in Boston, hiring people in AI and software development, as well as other areas. This is a continuation of Amazon’s increase in hires during the COVID-19 pandemic, where it hired 400,000 people in 2020, making it second to Walmart in its US workforce numbers. Incidentally, this coincides with Jeff Bezos stepping down as CEO of Amazon, to be replaced by Andy Jassy; however Bezos is still staying as the Executive Chair. [Read More]