Big Technology Podcast · Saturday, August 8, 2026
Following Demis Hassabis's move to chairman and chief scientist at Google DeepMind, there's a notable talent drain at the company's AI division. Key figures like Noam Shazeer have departed for OpenAI, and Jeff Dean is co-founding a new AI startup called Discovery Loop, with Google reportedly investing in it. This exodus signifies significant upheaval within Google's AI leadership and research teams.
“But the other, the other side of it is, uh, if you feel like you need to make a move, if you feel like you're being held back, uh, if you feel like, uh, your efforts are not progressing, maybe because of diverging interests or differences of opinion, you can't just stick with it just because, you know, that's the way things have done.”
“So it's a high stakes move. And then of course, the question is whether Google has the talent to continue, uh, to stay in league with the others because of course, uh, you've seen, you know, Demis is staying on, he's going to become the Google DeepMind chairman and chief scientist.”
“Um, but there's a tremendous amount of talent that's left at the top rings of Google's AI division, including Noam Shazeer, who's gone to OpenAI. And also this week, uh, we found out that Jeff Dean, uh, is also going to make a new startup called Discovery Loop, which Google is going to be investing in, uh, and so he's out as well.”