Lyft’s mission is to improve people’s lives with the world’s best transportation. And in order to deliver on our mission, we need to have a deep understanding of our drivers and riders and the cities in which they live.
We’re taking steps every day to make that happen, and that’s why we’re thrilled to announce that Google’s Tal Shaked has joined Lyft as our very first Head of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
Before joining Lyft, Tal was a Distinguished Engineer at Google, where he led the Machine Learning Accelerated (MLX) team in Google Brain, the company’s deep learning artificial intelligence research team. Tal is also a co-founder of Sibyl, which was the most widely deployed ML platform at Google in 2015 and was later superseded by TensorFlow Accelerated (TFX) –– developed by the MLX team. He also co-developed RankNet, which won the ICML Test of Time Award in 2015. And if that isn’t enough, Tal is also a professional chess player! He won the 1997 World Junior Chess Championship, has become a Grandmaster, and has competed with several past, current, and future world chess champions.
At Lyft, we’re excited to up-level machine learning technology within all facets of the company –– including Science, Data, Infrastructure, Product, and more.
"Lyft is a data driven company, and we’ve already been using ML technologies to address a variety of product challenges, such as matching riders with drivers and optimizing incentives,” said Eisar Lipkovitz, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Lyft. “I’m looking forward to accelerate incorporating ML and AI disciplines into Lyft’s product and experience under Tal’s leadership."
Join us in welcoming Tal to Lyft!