Jeff Dean, Google's chief scientist, is leaving the company after 27 years to launch his own start-up. Demis Hassabis is stepping down as chief executive of Google DeepMind to become the unit's chairman. Alphabet's stock fell 5% on the announcement.
Google announced a reshuffle of its AI leadership on Wednesday. Demis Hassabis is stepping down as chief executive of Google DeepMind to become its chairman, while chief scientist Jeff Dean is leaving to start his own company. Google's stock fell 5% on the announcement.
Dean joined Google as its 30th employee in 1999. He is bringing Google senior fellow Sanjay Ghemawat with him, and Google will invest in the new venture. According to a post on X, the venture will be called Discovery Loop and organized as a public benefit corporation focused on AI for science and engineering.
CEO Sundar Pichai said in a memo: "Jeff Dean is at a moment where he wants to try something new". Hassabis will become chair of Google DeepMind and take on the additional title of chief scientist at Alphabet. He said the move gives him time and space to focus on the bigger picture around AI and artificial general intelligence.
Koray Kavukcuoglu, Hassabis' former lieutenant, is being promoted to senior vice-president of Google DeepMind. He will lead development of Gemini 4, the company's next major AI model, and will report to Pichai.
The leadership changes follow two other departures in June, when Noam Shazeer, co-lead of the Gemini project, left for OpenAI, and Nobel Prize winner John Jumper moved to Anthropic. Alphabet shares also fell 7% after the company's late-July earnings report. That report showed capital expenditure pushing cash flow negative for the first time on record, with Google forecasting full-year capex of up to $205 billion.
Sources: Financial Times, CNBC, MarketWatch
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