NIX Solutions: Apple’s Search Key Developers are Back at Google

The founders of the startup Laserlike, bought by Apple to speed up the development of its own search engine, left the company and returned to work at Google. Srinivasan Venkatachari, Anand Shukla and Steven Baker have held senior positions in the Apple Search development team.

NIX Solutions

Srinivasan Venkatachari was Apple’s senior director of search, with 200 people under him. He is now Google’s vice president of engineering, and his boss is senior vice president of technology and community affairs James Manica. Shukla and Baker are also subordinate to Manika, but it is not yet known in what positions.

All three previously worked at Google before leaving the company to found Laserlike in 2015, says SearchEngines. The startup was developing a technology capable of recommending sites based on the user’s interests and browsing history. After Apple acquired Laserlike, its key employees went to work for the corporation to join the development of Apple Search.

Market experts believe it will now take at least four years to launch Apple’s own search engine.

NIX Solutions reminds that in December 2020, Apple patented its own search technology. The company stepped up work on its own search amid increased attention from regulators to the payments that Google makes every year to remain the default search engine on iOS devices. Native search will allow Apple to provide users with an alternative to Google in the event that the authorities impose a ban on their partnership.