Google DeepMind’s Chief AI Readiness Officer Lila Ibrahim revealed that her first job involved detasseling corn in Indiana for little over $1 an hour, years before she became a senior executive in the artificial intelligence industry. Speaking to Fortune, Ibrahim said she grew up in a family of modest means and began working at a young age to build a strong work ethic. “I grew up in really humble beginnings,” Ibrahim said, recalling that her parents were immigrants raising three children in the US, including a sibling with cerebral palsy. “It was happy but challenging in many ways financially.” Ibrahim joined Google DeepMind in 2018 as the company's first chief operating officer despite having no formal background in AI research.