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

818 points · 871 comments · colesantiago

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. mrpopo · 1785948737 · focus · HN ↗
  > people who truly believe in the economically transformative power of AI
  People who truly care about becoming rich*
  DeepMind made enormous transformative discoveries, for instance in the world of protein folding. But that will just save human lives, not let CEOs fire their people to grab a larger piece of cake for themselves.

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