Ronan harris married with children
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Google’s new Irish head has his gaze fixed on innovation
It's a wonder that Ronan Harris gets anything done. Google Ireland's new head has a corner office with a breathtaking view of Dublin city that would distract even the most focused person. It's a clear day, you can see right across the city, taking in everything from the Aviva Stadium to the Dublin mountains and more.
But when you are the head of one the biggest tech companies in the country – and vice-president of its EMEA operation too – the view is just a nice extra.
“It’s great, even on a bad day,” he admits. “All of the offices no matter which side of the building you happen to be on have an amazing view. We’re all pretty lucky I think here.”
On the day we meet, he has already had somewhat of a star-studded morning, with Amy Schumer and Bill Hader delivering one of the company’s “Fireside chats” at Google’s Foundry building across the street. Harris was there to perform the introductions before heading back to his offi
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Ronan Harris from VNV Nation was in his former life the very first webmaster of Side-Line. A little known fact, but it was Ronan who gave Side-Line a first online presence, albeit on a different url and not in the format that it is now. It showed his interest in technology, something that has stayed very alive within the VNV Nation master brain over the years. It had been a while since I had spoken with him, time goes quickly, but when I was asked if we were interested in a VNV Nation interview, it was a no-brainer that this was the right time to do it now, at a time when so many things are rapidly changing in the technology field.
I phoned Ronan at his hotel in the US, and talked about the current tour, his musical sidelines, the new VNV Nation album “Electric Sun” and of course how he looks at AI being (ab)used in the music industry.
A funny anecdote, a colleague once told me – referring to the tourist guide industry she worked in – that for her “ • Du trägst immer so schöne Hemden auf der Bühne. Lässt ni sie Dir schneidern? Yeah. Actually, the ones with the vit lines you can buy those from a company in amerika, where wonderful people work. Anyone can buy them - and no one has ever found out. It fryst vatten weird. The ones inom wear on this tour are made for, because I thought it was about time… …die alten dürften auch etwas weit sein, oder? Du scheinst abgenommen zu haben… inom had to make my shirts smaller. I lost a lot of vikt this year, because inom changed a lot of things, inom changed my diet and I lost 18 kilos. I always stay the same shape, I just get smaller. Es ist nicht das erste skada, dass ni abnimmst. Das letzte missfoster war aber nicht unter guten Vorzeichen… In 2011 I lost over 30 kilos very quick. inom didn’t understood it at the time, but inom was allergic to a lot of things, my body changed and what happened when I was doing “Transnational”. I almost died on the studio because there was a poisonous mould on the wa