Thread

1. atleastoptimal · 1785947160 · focus · HN ↗

   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 who truly believe in the economically transformative power of AI to work at Google since their benefits will be capped by Google being large + having public company obligations.

   1. onlyrealcuzzo · 1785947875 · focus · HN ↗

      There is no other way to describe the Gemini 3.5 pro delay than as a complete and unmitigated disaster.

      It's a huge company.

      It's unlikely there is any one person to blame (and entirely possible he has none of it). But things need to change.

      1. sigmoid10 · 1785948239 · focus · HN ↗

         Google was always at the frontier of real research, but has been abysmal at shipping good products (at least since Sundar). The core company is run for margins and interest rates by the business people nowadays.
      2. tanh · 1785948254 · focus · HN ↗

         Yeah. I’m guessing they’re behind the Chinese models in capability now
      3. overfeed · 1785948399 · focus · HN ↗

         > But things need to change.

         Not all change is good, as proven by Zuckerberg's response after the lackluster Llama 4 release. The radical restructuring appears to have made things worse.

      4. pixl97 · 1785948626 · focus · HN ↗

         Huge companies tend to make money from network effects, rent seeking, and lock in. They tend to be horrifically bad when it comes to innovation, especially when it may disrupt exiting departments in the company. Those departments will fight for their life and generally muck things up.

         Very few companies have leadership that can prevent this infighting and force teams on directed goals.

      5. godwinson__4-8 · 1785948874 · focus · HN ↗

         People keep saying the same thing about Google lagging behind and always end up looking rather silly. Google was going to lose search to OpenAI. Then people complained there was too much AI in Google search. Now it's pretty good and par for the course.

         Yes it's a huge company.

         So they are slower. Then they will surface it across their massive product base and keep generating cash. While having a hand in Anthropic and others via investment anyway.

         Google doesn't need to offer you the bleeding edge at startup pace. They're playing a different game. When the bubble pops they will be well positioned really no matter the outcome to continue to capitalize as their competitors implode or get absorbed.

         The idea a delay is a "complete and unmitigated disaster" is just laughable. People have been saying this about Google since ChatGPT first invaded the public consciousness. Google will continue to do well, the histrionics of people like you aside.

      6. EthanHeilman · 1785949108 · focus · HN ↗

         I disagree. Google is one of the few parties that can monetize AI because Google has a massive moat in the form of their products: gmail, chrome, photos, search, etc... and Google already has the custom-built chips and datacenters.

         Google spending money on competing head to head with your LLMs is a waste of money for Google. If anthropic wins, Google copies their approach, buys anthropic for cheap or both. All the investors throwing money into OpenAI, Anthropic, are just accidentally subsidizing Google's product development. Google shouldn't spend its AI research capital in an arms race with Anthropic but instead should invest in AI approaches that no one else is investigating at scale. That way Google can hedge against LLMs hitting a wall.

         There is a real but small danger to Google that Anthropic replaces Google as a search engine, but that is an uphill fight for Anthropic. Google has massive brand recognition, network effects with gmail and chrome, Anthropic can't just copy what works from Google. On the other hand Google can copy what works for Anthropic. Google would have to play poorly to lose that fight.

         Probably the worse case for Google is that software becomes so cheap and easy to create and maintain that all of Google's product offerings become commoditized. Even in that world Google has a lock on infrastructure. Perhaps ASI software creation completely removes that as well? If so we are living in a post-singularity world and probably the stockmarket doesn't exist anymore either.

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