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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

#951

Post by firemelt »

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…

its just simple as someone think he knows better than the engineer,

anthropic and open ai doesn't have those people currently as they are private.

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

#952

Post by aix1 »

aix1 wrote: post #908
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it "just" a matter of Jeff Dean (& co) leaving, Hassabis replacing Dean, and Kavukcuoglu replacing Hassabis ? A massive shake up for sure, but why do you see it as separate events merely timed to coincide ?

So there are two events here: Event 1 - Jeff & co leaving. Event 2 - Demis stepping down. DeepMind doesn't need a "chair" and "Alphabet's chief scientist" is a bullshit title that Jeff invented for himself when he moved from Google Research to GDM, to make it look like we wasn't abandoning the former for the latter. The third change is basically ratifying the status quo, since Koray has been de factor running GDM for…

One detail I missed is that Koray's new title is "SVP of Google DeepMind"[1], i.e. identical to his old title.

So, basically, the third change is even more of a no-op than I thought.

It seems pretty clear that GDM will no longer have a CEO.

[1] https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/n...

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

#953

Post by wasting_time »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #562
hintymad wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This funny post reads surreal, but it may carry some truth: https://x.com/signulll/status/2067446889956430273?lang=en

https://xcancel.com/signulll/status/2067446889956430273

Off-topic, but clicking this link instantly crashes my desktop in both Firefox and Chromium. Debian 13 with backports kernel, AMD laptop graphics.

I have never seen anything like it in 20 years of Linux desktop use.

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

#954

Post by gniv »

weatherlite wrote: post #701
zarzavat wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that is true, Google should be winning. We underestimated Google's determination to fail.

Is it failing ? Take a look at the stock price

Just because it is (was) close to all-time high doesn't mean it's high. Look at the P/E[1]. The market does not think it will grow long-term.

[1] And yes I know it's artificially lowered due to the mark-to-market gains in investments, but even without those it's low compared to peers.

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

#955

Post by gniv »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #737
sheeshkebab wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s with fascination with agi/superintelligence? It seems people working on it never had kids and just want to compensate for that. It’s a really horrible thing to try to “solve”.

I think death, and most extreme pain/suffering should be optional. Superintelligence, if done safely, lets us solve most of our problems.

> Superintelligence, if done safely, lets us solve most of our problems.

This is an interesting problem to explore. IMO most problems in the world are political. It's still likely that SI will solve them but it will take (many) years.

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

#956

Post by SwedishDungeon »

azornathogron wrote: post #931
_the_inflator wrote: post #769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Roughly two years ago suddenly Hassabis was heavily promoted on all Google YouTube channels. It was to fight ChatGPT and promote Gemini. I think the guy does a very poor job or is simply not the right guy to appear as public figure for Gemini. At least he tried. He is a man for everything that is not filmed. Google doesn’t really have a person to give Gemini or AI a human face. And that is only consequential because…

Do Zuck or Altman have charisma? (Jobs I'll give you.)

No.

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

#958

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

galangalalgol wrote: post #795
zarzavat wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that is true, Google should be winning. We underestimated Google's determination to fail.

Is Gemini really that bad? I mean, I would always prefer anthropic for agentic coding, and apparently openai has the math thing cornered, but if I'm using ai like a search engine gemini does that just fine. That may be all they were actually aiming for whatever else they say.

> Is Gemini really that bad?

It still produce full-blown hallucinations for me sometimes, even in 2026. The kinds ChatGPT stopped generating by 2025. It is cheap and fast though.

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

#959

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

solenoid0937 wrote: post #397
frollogaston wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much belief is that? I tend to skip the HN posts that are about AI.

Most of HN does not take the idea of superintelligence seriously, and until this year did not take the idea of AGI seriously. I think LessWrong is a much better community for rational takes on AI, they've been reasoning about these risks for years under a much more sound logical framework

Are you referring to [0] as a "rational take"? Oh, sorry, it is 2026 already and that one was quickly swept under the rug already so I guess you were referring to [1]? Not sure those would appear very rational to anyone outside of your LessWrong bubble.

[0]: https://ai-2027.com/ [1]: https://ai-2040.com/

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

#960

Post by siva7 »

treis wrote: post #631
losvedir wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hardly use Google search anymore in favor of ChatGPT. It's surely an existential threat. Google has a lot of layers of defense in Android, Chrome, Gmail/Accounts, and a stranglehold on internet ads. But at the center of that is search and search is being replaced by LLMs.

I stopped googling. Chatgpt does better web search than Google Ai.
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