Amitabh Kumar "Amit" Singhal (born September 1968) is a former senior vice president at Google Inc. having been a Google Fellow and the head of Google's Search team for 15 years.Bloomberg Businessweek's interview with Amit Singhal

Biography

Born in

Jhansi Jhansi (; Hindi: झांसी, Urdu: ) is a historic city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It lies in the region of Bundelkhand on the banks of the Pahuj River, in the extreme south of Uttar Pradesh. Jhansi is the administrative head ...

, a city in the state of

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

, Singhal received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

from

IIT Roorkee Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (abbreviated IIT Roorkee) is a technical university located in Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India. It is the oldest engineering institution in India, and was founded as the College of Civil Engineering in Bri ...

in 1989. He continued his computer science education in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, and received an

M.S. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

degree from

University of Minnesota Duluth The University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) is a public university in Duluth, Minnesota. It is part of the University of Minnesota system and offers 16 bachelor's degrees in 88 Academic major, majors, graduate programs in 25 different fields, and a ...

in 1991. He wrote about his time at the University of Minnesota Duluth: Singhal continued his studies at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named ...

, and received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degree in 1996. At Cornell, Singhal studied with

Gerard Salton Gerard A. "Gerry" Salton (8 March 1927 in Nuremberg – 28 August 1995) was a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. Salton was perhaps the leading computer scientist working in the field of information retrieval during his time, an ...

, a pioneer in the field of information retrieval, the academic discipline which forms the foundation of modern search.

John Battelle John Linwood Battelle (born November 4, 1965) is an entrepreneur, author and journalist. Best known for his work creating media properties, Battelle helped launch ''Wired'' in the 1990s and launched ''The Industry Standard ''during the dot-com bo ...

, in his book ''The Search'' calls Gerard Salton "the father of digital search." After getting a Ph.D. in 1996, Singhal joined

AT&T Labs AT&T Labs is the research & development division of AT&T, the telecommunications company. It employs some 1,800 people in various locations, including: Bedminster NJ; Middletown, NJ; Manhattan, NY; Warrenville, IL; Austin, TX; Dallas, TX; Atla ...

(previously a part of

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial Research and development, research and scientific developm ...

), where he continued his research in information retrieval, speech retrieval and other related fields.

Controversy

He left Google on 26 February 2016, following sexual harassment allegations. He later joined

Uber Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber), based in San Francisco, provides mobility as a service, ride-hailing (allowing users to book a car and driver to transport them in a way similar to a taxi), food delivery (Uber Eats and Postmates), packa ...

Senior Vice President A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is on ...

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

in 2017 but was asked to resign for failing to disclose the reason for his resignation from Google. It was later revealed that Google paid him $35 Million as his exit package

Career

In 2000, he was recruited by friend Krishna Bharat to join Google. Singhal ran Google's core search quality department where he and his team were responsible for the Google search algorithms. According to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', Singhal was the "master" of Google's ranking algorithm – the formulas that decide which Web pages best answer each user's question. As a reward for his rewrite of the search engine in 2001, Singhal was named a "Google Fellow". Singhal served as the head of Google's core search ranking team until his retirement announced on 26 February 2016. In 2017, he joined

as SVP of engineering, reporting to CEO Travis Kalanick, and with his fellow Google alum Kevin Thompson operating as SVP of marketplace engineering.

Honors and awards

In 2011 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.India Abroad: Top 50 Most Influential Indian Americans - Amit Singhal
/ref> Fortune named Singhal one of the smartest people in tech.
In 2011, Singhal was given the Outstanding Achievement in Science and Technology Award at

The Asian Awards The Asian Awards is an annual award ceremony for the global Asian community which takes place in the United Kingdom, with 14 categories that include business, philanthropy, entertainment, culture and sport. Nominees are selected by an independen ...

.Home Secretary celebrates Asian Achievement
/ref> He was elected member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

References

External links

Amit Singhal's homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Singhal, Amit 1968 births Indian emigrants to the United States University of Minnesota Duluth alumni Cornell University alumni American Hindus Google employees Google Fellows American people of Indian descent American businesspeople Living people Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering AT&T people IIT Roorkee alumni People from Jhansi American software engineers Uber people