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Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

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Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#551

Post by B-Con »

losvedir wrote: post #462
Analemma_ wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For at least a year now the standard reflexive reply to “Google seems way behind OAI and Anthropic” has been “it’ll be ok, they’ve got Dean and Hassabis.” And now they don’t. What reason is there to be bullish about Google now?

I still think Google is the only one who has a shot of coming out of this on top. Open AI and Anthropic's whole existence is predicated on some sort of moat, which I don't really see them having long term. They've got a bit of a headstart, but that's it. Conversely, AI is just a means to an end for Google - they don't need for their model to be the one to succeed. But, in contrast to the other major company in their…

I read Google's business incentive as "in it to not lose". AI is a new consumer endpoint and Google currently captures a lot of the endpoints.

> I think HN skews coding agent focused

100% this. Coding agents are an interesting test ground, but the people who care about them are a fairly small bubble.

I think they carry some of the overall AI weight because of the "what if you can vibe code your entire business" moonshot, but that's still orders of magnitude away and who knows if today's coding agents will actually be a stepping stone to that. If we ever get there it will likely be with entirely new domain languages.

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#552

Post by jimjimjim »

reaperducer wrote: post #534
nightshift1 wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ought to be extremely easy now to use LLMs to transpile cobol and do the necessary reverse engineering to migrate off mainframes and aix servers. I think IBM will lose many customers.

It ought to be extremely easy now to use LLMs to transpile cobol and do the necessary reverse engineering to migrate off mainframes and aix servers. I think IBM will lose many customers. The problem is that those COBOL systems have to be absolutely provably correct, for both financial and regulatory reasons. LLMs can't do that. They're designed to be variable. You can't vibe code a bank transaction system. "Close eno…

Yep, if AI could do it so could out-sourcing it to India. AI is great for "almost" but not great at "exact"

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#553

Post by dghlsakjg »

reaperducer wrote: post #534
nightshift1 wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ought to be extremely easy now to use LLMs to transpile cobol and do the necessary reverse engineering to migrate off mainframes and aix servers. I think IBM will lose many customers.

It ought to be extremely easy now to use LLMs to transpile cobol and do the necessary reverse engineering to migrate off mainframes and aix servers. I think IBM will lose many customers. The problem is that those COBOL systems have to be absolutely provably correct, for both financial and regulatory reasons. LLMs can't do that. They're designed to be variable. You can't vibe code a bank transaction system. "Close eno…

It’s also a solved problem combined with a risk averse industry.

COBOL on mainframes has worked reliably for decades. On the scale of what a bank will spend on operations the mainframe doesn’t really cost much.

Banks are sort of the canonical example of “no one ever got fired for buying ibm”.

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#554

Post by jimjimjim »

fragmede wrote: post #468
impulser_ wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been saying that for over a decade now, and their business is still going.

I dunno about going strong. $1,000 in Microsoft stock in 1990 would have made you a multi-millionaire today. $1,000 in IBM stock in 1990 would make you a ten-thousandaire today.

apples to oranges comparison. 1990 is early days for MS. 1990 is gorilla days for IBM.

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#555

Post by [deleted] »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #30

I think there's one weirdly simple reason DeepMind isn't doing as well as OpenAI and Anthropic. I may be wrong on this. OpenAI and Anthropic went from tiny startups to huge companies. As a consequence the stock options/RSU's offered to the employees paid off a far higher percentage ROI than any stock options a DeepMind (and thus Google) employee would get (since Google is already huge). This disincentivizes people wh…

[deleted]

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#556

Post by impulser_ »

reaperducer wrote: post #456
impulser_ wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have been saying that for over a decade now, and their business is still going.

People have been saying that for over a decade now, and their business is still going. So is IBM. There was a pretty interesting article in the Wall Street Journal a few weeks back about how IBM is flying under the radar, and doing well by not taking the hype bait. It noted that 70% of all credit card transactions on the planet go through an IBM system.

Yeah, I should have said growing not going. That's what I meant.

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#557

Post by notatoad »

GodelNumbering wrote: post #343
squidbeak wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gemini 3 Pro was legitimately frontier and released 8 1/2 months ago, not 14.

Correct, but it was preview release. I was referring to GA in my comment.

Does that mean anything at all? They released it. Customers paid for it. Sticking a preview label on it doesn’t change that it was released

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#558

Post by SamvitJ »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #30

I think there's one weirdly simple reason DeepMind isn't doing as well as OpenAI and Anthropic. I may be wrong on this. OpenAI and Anthropic went from tiny startups to huge companies. As a consequence the stock options/RSU's offered to the employees paid off a far higher percentage ROI than any stock options a DeepMind (and thus Google) employee would get (since Google is already huge). This disincentivizes people wh…

From what I've heard, DeepMind's pay structure is not tied to Google compensation bands. Which means that top performers and key hires can be and are compensated extremely generously if the need calls for it. Another Alphabet subsidiary, Waymo, was well-known for doing this back in the day.

But yes, even large RSU grants cannot replicate the upside of joining a company that increases in valuation 1000X, but to be fair, that is not a position the vast majority of OpenAI or Anthropic employees find themselves in either.

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#559

Post by fooker »

mikert89 wrote: post #537
fooker wrote: post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has close to the best internal tooling in the industry for a decade or so. Then the Google engineers who joined Facebook missed it so much that they built a better replacement.

google had the best tooling a decade ago...

Okay yeah, fair point.

My comment was from a decade old perspective

Re: Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

#560

Post by la6479 »

gandalfgeek wrote: post #371

Wow. Jeff and Sanjay both departing. Truly end of a golden era. There is an entire cohort of work-optional very senior engineers for whom one of the last reasons for hanging on was "at least Jeff and Sanjay are around".

This just shows that the "great minds" of AI in these companies are not able to come up with anything that radically differentiates their AI than the others. Wether it is gemini or openAI or grok - meh they all are similar and at this point one can interchange one with the other , excep that Google sits right at the edge with almost every browser search query hitting the google search engine AKA Gemini on the backend and one can switch easily into chat mode right from the search page. I dare say that the google CEO has done his job and set up the cash printing machine but from the AI masterminds in Google, not a groundbreaking progress has been made.
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