Google Labs VP exiting to form AI start-up with Salesforce ex Taylor
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One of Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) leaders in its forward-looking "bets" group is leaving to start his own artificial intelligence company, joining up with former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor.
Clay Bavor, currently VP of Google's Labs, announced on LinkedIn that he'll exit the company to form a new venture with Taylor in March.
He had started a website design company at 13 (after a second-grade candy-selling business), he said, and "Iâve always felt it would be when, not if, I started my next company. After 18 wonderful years at Google, today is when, and Iâm incredibly excited to share that I am cofounding that company with my longtime friend Bret Taylor."
The news was previously reported on CNBC.
Taylor had stepped down from his co-CEO role at Salesforce on Jan. 31. Bavor had started and led Google's augmented reality/virtual reality efforts.
"Bret and I have known each other since our early days at Google, and I have always admired his keen product sense and entrepreneurial spirit, his technical chops, and, above all, his character and integrity," Bavor said. "We share an obsession with recent advances in AI, and weâre excited to build a new company to apply AI to solve some of the most important problems in business."