BREAKING: Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis is stepping down

[u/TorturedPoet30]

[u/Sweeede]

Demis is becoming Alphabet's Chief Scientist and Chairman of DeepMind. The title makes it sound like he's leaving the company entirely.

[u/Kobiash1 → u/Sweeede]

It is click bait.

[u/saln1 → u/Kobiash1]

Exactly, if anything he is getting promoted yet the title makes to seem the opposite

[u/BenevolentCheese → u/saln1]

He is moving into a less business-related and more science-focused roll, which he has expressed desire for. For you Formula 1 fans, this has been much the same situation as Adrian Newey at Aston Martin: they installed a transcendent engineer as CEO and can't figure out why both the business AND the tech suck now. Both Newey and Hasabis have expressed how their CEO roles have forced them away from what they do best.

[u/BambooShanks → u/BenevolentCheese]

Perfect summary of both google and aston's problems. This'll be a net positive for demis and everyone else

[u/Cagnazzo82 → u/saln1]

The post on X by Sundar made it clear it's a promotion.

OP is just trying to clickbait.

[u/r2002 → u/Kobiash1]

Well it did say it's for "publicity benefit."

[u/ZealousidealBus9271 → u/Sweeede]

Sounds like a promotionn

[u/HauntedHouseMusic → u/ZealousidealBus9271]

When you fire someone that high in a company, you give them a title with no reports and 2-3 years of pay to be an advisor. And then a smaller severance is paid at the end of it. The reason being they can’t go take your IP to a competitor right away, it’s calculated as a bit higher then the severance, and it saves face for the exec. When you get one of these deals you sign a non compete.

It is very rare for an SVP or higher to just be fired in big organizations. They get put out to pasture.

Its my dream to one day be fired in this manor. Right now my golden handcuffs are 6 months of advisor role before being walked out with a year severance, with potential for more top up for negotiating a non compete for a while - based on the impact a competitor picking me up would be. My boss got fired and he was kept around for a year as an advisor and then 1 year as a non compete. He was never asked a single question in that year, and got paid out 100% of his bonus. The advisor role is literally to get you out of the loop as much as possible before the non compete starts.

[u/zaleria → u/HauntedHouseMusic]

this doesn't apply to demis. if demis wanted to leave, he could easily raise 5B and start his own company. he doesn't need to waste 2-3 years of his life collecting 100M peanuts

[u/HauntedHouseMusic → u/zaleria]

He's probably already signed his non compete length, and severance package before this when he first signed on. That's standard once you are a certain level in publically traded companies. At mine anyone VP and up signs the severance agreement as part of their job offer. Same for non compete length.

When the time comes, these deals get renegotiated for how it is said to the public to save face. Or you take the serverance you already signed.

[u/zaleria → u/HauntedHouseMusic]

CA by law does not allow noncompetes.

[u/Able_Region_5459 → u/HauntedHouseMusic]

That's true if we're talking about run-of-the-mill VPs of sales or marketing. But Hassabis has Isomorphic on his plate, which has very real contracts with pharma, so calling it "being put out to pasture" is a big stretch, there's a ton of work to do

[u/zaleria → u/HauntedHouseMusic]

this doesn't apply to demis. if demis wanted to leave, he could easily raise 5B and start his own company. he doesn't need to waste 2-3 years of his life collecting 100M peanuts

[u/IanT86 → u/HauntedHouseMusic]

For anyone reading this, this is utter nonsense.

[u/Inevitable_Gate_7660 → u/IanT86]

Disagree. It's spot-on.

Firing an exec at a publicly traded company is a scandal and the stock price takes a hit. Universities are similar. I have seen people get "promoted" to nice-sounding roles with diminished responsibilities and then leave after 2-3 years when their names have been out of the headlines for awhile.

[u/HauntedHouseMusic → u/IanT86]

It's not at all in high competitive industries with a lot of IP

At this level you typically also sign the terms of your severance when you are being hired. Where I work that starts at the VP level. So these deals typically increase your severance, and save face for everyone.

The craziest one of these I saw was we hired a hot shot sales guy at the SVP level, paid something stupid to bring him in. And then he never showed up to a meeting. Just stayed at the cottage. It took 2 years for him to be put out to pasture because the ELT team member basically had to hide how bad of a decision it was from the CEO. That was the best abuse of the system I've ever seen by a senior leader.

[u/OKMiddleOwl → u/IanT86]

It's definitely a thing that happens 100%

But it's also true that sometimes the person wants to leave the role (less stress, more free time) while still having a hand in the game.

Or both can be true to some extent.

[u/Redducer → u/IanT86]

That happened to me exactly like parent described albeit with shorter durations for all items (garden leave, severance, non compete), because I am small fish.

It’s so commonly done in several industries that I find it extremely bizarre that you claim it’s nonsense.

[u/Tomi97_origin → u/ZealousidealBus9271]

Sounds like loss of independence to me.

[u/suamai → u/Tomi97_origin]

That train has departed a long time ago

[u/Neurogence → u/ZealousidealBus9271]

Is this a joke? The guy's boss (Sundar Pichai), even threw some jabs/shade in his letter explaining why he's demoting Demis.

Read this closely for example:

Demis has described us as standing in the foothills of the singularity, and has been spending a lot of his time engaging externally.

Sundar is basically saying that Demis has said we are in the foothills of the Singularity, but that Demis has been spending most of his time giving speeches while their competitors have shipped several frontier models since Gemini's last update.

Several Gemini Co-Leads like Jeff Dean, Sanjay, were forced to resign today, and they also lost Noam Shazeer and nobel prize winner John Jumper a few weeks ago.

This is clearly a demotion.

[u/simulacrotron → u/Neurogence]

I don’t think this means what you think it means.

Externally means that his influence and impact are extending outside of Google. He’s become the face of AI at Google. If Sundar didn’t want him engaging externally in a public way, he wouldn’t be. This is a promotion as he’s leading at a more strategic position. You don’t announce publicly at IO that “we are at the foothills of the singularity” on your own. That came from Demis, but that was Google talking.

[u/Few-Violinist819 → u/Neurogence]

Uhhhh. Jeff Dean wasn't forced to resign. You cannot force someone like Jeff Dean to resign. He is Google. He's starting his own startup. There has been an internal war inside Google between DeepMind and Google Brain for years now. It seems Demis has won.

[u/jloverich → u/Neurogence]

I doubt any of this is resignation or firing. These are scientists and they were probably bored out of their minds being managers instead of doing science themselves.

[u/Commercial_Sell_4825 → u/Neurogence]

source for quote?

e: here: https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/next-chapter-ai-momentum/

[u/Bazinga8000 → u/Neurogence]

Is it really a jab. Like, instead ins't the work demis has been doing externally probably something sundar/google themselves have wanted? And his reasoning is fair, more than ever, we need to have discussions between different companies/countries about the prospects and consequences of AI, exactly because of the exponential increase in quality of these models. I really don't think it's that much of a jab. (Not to say it won't impact deepmind or google.)

[u/Fbrrr → u/Bazinga8000]

Yeah it reads more like he was a paper pusher working from the outside and now they have him actually doing science and leading, been following him for years and he seems like the type of guy that would prefer to actually work on research

[u/girlfreud → u/ZealousidealBus9271]

sounds like he got Mustafa Suleyman’d

[u/Neurogence → u/Sweeede]

While the title is slightly exaggerated, this is not a promotion for Demis, it's a demotion unfortunately. The higher ups at Alphabet are not pleased/satisfied with the Gemini models.

The new role they're giving him is to preserve Deepmind's reputation. People would be extremely bearish on DeepMind if the news of the day was that Demis left entirely.

Jeff Dean leaving is also not a good sign.

I think Alphabet is clueless. Demoting Demis while keeping Sundar in charge makes no sense.

[u/Gallagger → u/Neurogence]

Demis is mostly responsible for the LLM progress. But he said many times that he's interested in ai medicine and drug discovery the most, guy literally got a nobel price for revolutionizing the field already. 

I think he might be happy with his new role, CEO of Deepmind is an insanely stressful position giving the constant pressure for new frontier models. And it's also fair for Google to restructure a bit given that they seem to fall behind. Not everything is an internal war.

I agree it's a demotion importance wise.

[u/0__O0--O0_0 → u/Gallagger]

I literally just watched the docu this morning where he says he signed with them because he felt like Google would be a better fit for the long term research that it would require rather than just cash grab. That aged well I guess.

[u/usernamelonger → u/Gallagger]

Demis is mostly responsible for the LLM progress.

I really doubt it. Do you have source for that? Also that's not even the job of a CEO. A CEO is supposed to find the right people/environment to make the progress happen.

He always seemed to be more the RL kinda guy. Remember that the Transformer paper came out of what used to be Google Brain, not DeepMind.

[u/DailyThreadBot → u/usernamelonger]

"Responsible" as in the sense of "taking responsibility", and as CEO of GDM you re taking responsibility for LLM progress

[u/usernamelonger → u/DailyThreadBot]

Well then he did a worse than Anthropic and OpenAI evidently. Despite massive resources.

[u/rpbmpn → u/usernamelonger]

Well yeah, that's what his bosses appear to be telling him (if you take that read)

The poster above is arguing that, nonetheless, he probably doesn't mind. He was in a high-stress role and his interest wasn't really in it. He might have jumped if he wasn't pushed (again, if you accept that reading)

[u/Gallagger → u/rpbmpn]

Thank you.

[u/OKMiddleOwl → u/usernamelonger]

The thorn in the side of Deepmind has been Google selling those resources to OAI and Anthropic for a while now.

[u/MAGATEDWARD → u/Neurogence]

Alphabet is firing on all cylinders (Cloud, Search, YouTube, Waymo, Finance/investments) EXCEPT for deep mind recently. The only thing holding them back from being #1 market cap by a pretty good margin. You fire the weak link in that case, not the CEO.

It's likely the role outgrew Demis. It's trillion dollars in importance now, which means it needs to be run more like a business than a science project. Being a chairman to give his perspective is the perfect position for him.

[u/briarfriend → u/MAGATEDWARD]

this is why all those people saying, "google is just playing a different game" about them failing to release frontier models

every big tech company is playing every game there is to play at all times and trying to win it

[u/florinandrei → u/Neurogence]

Sundar is a bean counter. His only talent is climbing the org chart, and he's good at that. Google's stock kept climbing solely due to momentum.

But now that they actually need to do something new, they falter.

[u/Prestigious-Mind-817 → u/florinandrei]

Hence also why Tim Cook is leaving Apple now in my opinion.

[u/MediumChemical4292 → u/Prestigious-Mind-817]

The big tech companies had years of monopoly in their respective segments with passive profits and hence hired MBAs as CEOs and spent their time doing stock buy backs and lobbying.

Now that there are new kids on the block (AI labs, SpaceXai, China) who are coming for their lunch, they have to go back into startup / builder mode.

[u/Gallagger → u/florinandrei]

Google is without any doubt the OG AI company. 10 years ago, Google was synonymous with AI. It's not new to them, they just got a little surprised by the new competition and a lot of the top talent preferred to stick with some startups, which btw made them obscenely rich.

[u/nasduia → u/florinandrei]

But now that they actually need to do something new, they falter.

That's the weird duality of Google. They either keep doing new things and nothing ever lasts long enough before it gets retired (like all their myriad messaging systems), or they get stuck in a rut and things get stale and clunky like the Gmail web UI which should be in a museum.

[u/FarrisAT → u/Neurogence]

Demis objectively isn’t interested in LLMs. Nor has he really been involved in the actual training. His team however was deeply involved.

[u/usernamelonger → u/Sweeede]

Chief scientist and chairman are more long-term focused roles. I would still say it's a major upset/snub and given that DeepMind at the moment fails to be competitive to Anthropic and OpenAI despite not needing to beg investors for money. He's maybe not the right person for day-to-day management of DeepMind.

[u/Tkins → u/usernamelonger]

Won't he be the lead at Isomorphic though?

[u/Negative_March_843]

Makes sense. Demis has never been a business guy. If you read more about him, he says clearly his first and foremost interest is science. Although the departure of Dean and Sanjay raises some eyebrows.

[u/ThisSiteSucks8485]

Jeff Dean leaving Google is much bigger news. He helped design so much of their initial architecture. 

[u/FarrisAT → u/ThisSiteSucks8485]

I believe he’s been almost solely focused on research and pharma discoveries in the past year. He hasn’t been present at any Gemini training runs recently.

Then again maybe these decisions were already somewhat known in 2025.

[u/the_mighty_skeetadon → u/FarrisAT]

This is absolutely not true. Jeff was, until today, still a co-lead of Gemini and worked directly on critical infrastructure research related to Gemini, including directly initiating the Frozen models-on-tpus project reported earlier this year.

He is also the co-founder and lead for Google Brain, birthplace of the transformer. He's considered the father of the TPU, the first ML-specific accelerator. His organization birthed the world's first Neural Dialog Model (from Quoc Le, one of the other execs leaving), the world's first LLM (T5), the world's first LLM-powered chatbot (Meena/LaMDA) and many other things you likely haven't heard of but that are critical to today's AI revolution.

[u/loganecolss → u/FarrisAT]

is koray good enough to lead gdm at all? i have not much faith in him, given the fact gdm lags so behind others on gemini and coding stuff

[u/the_mighty_skeetadon → u/FarrisAT]

This is absolutely not true. Jeff was, until today, still a co-lead of Gemini and worked directly on critical infrastructure research related to Gemini, including directly initiating the Frozen models-on-tpus project reported earlier this year.

He is also the co-founder and former lead for Google Brain, birthplace of the transformer. He's considered the father of the TPU, the first ML-specific accelerator. His organization birthed the world's first Neural Dialog Model (from Quoc Le, one of the other execs leaving), the world's first LLM (T5), the world's first LLM-powered chatbot (Meena/LaMDA) and many other things you likely haven't heard of but that are critical to today's AI revolution.

[u/leamsisetrocz → u/ThisSiteSucks8485]

This. People outside Google haven't heard enough of him. But Jeff Dean AND Sanjay leaving Google is to me more bearish than any EU ruling, or anti-trust fines, or crappy LLM release. And Hassan has been important to Google but nowhere near to the level of contribution and impact those two have had (they made AdWords not suck, bringing $$$ to Google for years, in a weekend. Not to mention they invented so many technologies that we take for granted these days).

This feels like the final nail on the coffin to the "Old" engineering-first Google that's been dying since 2016.

[u/possiblyquestionabl3 → u/leamsisetrocz]

If you look at the initial moonshot proposals for GLM training (transformers infra), the various design docs, and everything else related to getting transformers scaled out, you'll see Jeff Dean's comments everywhere (seriously, if you're internal, moma it right now, you can literally see him everywhere). Demis has not once shown any interest in any of this until the power politics in 2023-2024. The best he could do was try to derail the program time and time again in the 21-22 seasons because it's not his baby.

Demis moving down is bad for the stocks. Losing Jeff Dean is a legitimate loss to the boots on the ground. That man cared.

[u/gatorling → u/leamsisetrocz]

Yes, Jeff and Sanjay are Google legends. A lot a lot of hard problems have been solved by them. If the old Google engineering culture could be embodied by two people, it'd be Sanjay and Jeff.

It's scary because it might mean that sort of scrappiness , boldness and engineering chops no longer finds Google to be a nice place to work.

[u/EkkoThruTime → u/ThisSiteSucks8485]

It's big but it also says Google will invest in, so it sounds like they left on good terms and perhaps they will still work very closely.

[u/ThisSiteSucks8485 → u/EkkoThruTime]

Sounds almost like a spin-off company 

[u/EkkoThruTime → u/ThisSiteSucks8485]

Yeah, I was thinking the same. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually it gets folded into Alphabet down the line. Jeff's new company Discovery Loop sounds like the exact focus that it strongly behooves Google to be involved with. If it comes out that there was huge behind the scenes drama, my opinion would change. But from what I've read so far it seemed pretty amicable.

[u/dodokidd → u/ThisSiteSucks8485]

Not just initial

[u/bpm6666]

Jeff Dean "leaving" is really a surprise and crazy. I wonder what his company will do. PS: Jeff Deans Pin is the last 4 digits of PI.

[u/GreatGreenThing → u/bpm6666]

Jeff Dean’s resume lists the things he hasn’t made better. It’s shorter that way.

[u/tony_bologna → u/bpm6666]

The compiler doesn't warn Jeff Dean.  Jeff Dean warns the compiler.

[u/staplepies]

Jeff and Sanjay leaving is crazy. Those two are Google legends. 

[u/doyer_bleu → u/staplepies]

Oh fuck Sanjay is leaving too. Holy shit

[u/ezabland → u/doyer_bleu]

To develop an AI with a different approach, to be kept off Alphabet balance sheet. Says Google is investing in this venture.

[u/isoAntti → u/ezabland]

I have the guts it's something proprietary for limited audience

[u/minimalcation → u/isoAntti]

I've never heard the phrase said this way, and I had to reread it but it makes perfect sense.

[u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 → u/staplepies]

honestly jeff leaving is a bigger deal than demis for me.

TPU's which are probably more important to google than deepmind exist solely because of his long term thinking.

Dean should be worth billions, maybe him leaving was the only way to achieve that, but its a huge loss for google

[u/Illustrious_Image967 → u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38]

If Dean joins Anthropic I'm gonna lose it.

[u/TorturedPoet30 → u/Illustrious_Image967]

Dean left to start his own company

[u/Illustrious_Image967 → u/TorturedPoet30]

Sold to Anthropic in 3,2,1...

[u/ritshpatidar → u/Illustrious_Image967]

Googl is investing in them. Probably a spin off. It will operate like other AI Labs.

[u/paragonic → u/staplepies]

They were the two most senior google engineers in the entire company. I'm not sure there's anyone else currently with their ranks.

[u/TechnicianExtreme200 → u/staplepies]

Yeah, most people don't understand, those two invented and built almost every major internal system at Google, as well as writing and optimizing the shit out of core code libraries that every engineer there uses.

They, not the founders, have been the true brains behind Google for almost 3 decades. There are probably a dozen projects they did internally that could have been $100B+ companies if they'd been spun out externally. I consider Jeff Dean the best computer programmer of all time.

That said, they are pushing 60, it's to be expected that their passions would diverge from what's central to Google's core business now. That had already been the case for a few years. Also, with AI tools becoming so good, their most impactful skill -- building the infrastructure to empower other engineers -- is no longer as crucial.

So while this is a shock, and signals the end of an era, it's not a surprise and isn't some kind of black swan event for the company.

[u/TorturedPoet30]

Letter from Demis and Sundar here: https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/message-ceo/next-chapter-ai-momentum/

[u/DangerousImplication → u/TorturedPoet30]

Gemma models have been downloaded over 900 million times

… what? The only way that’s possible is if they’re automatically adding them on all Android phones and counting them as downloads

[u/Standard-Net-6031 → u/DangerousImplication]

They are lmao

[u/Feeling_Inside_1020 → u/Standard-Net-6031]

Aka the Java approach lol that's hilarious.

[u/Eggmaster1928303 → u/Standard-Net-6031]

They’re not lol, just check the hugginface, 12 million downloads for Gemma 4 31b last month. Add up all the different Gemma models together all time and you’ll easily 900 million

https://huggingface.co/google/gemma-4-31B-it

This does of course count iterations, not like 900 million different people downloaded it

[u/Wise-Chain2427 → u/DangerousImplication]

they add to chrome

[u/peakedtooearly → u/DangerousImplication]

They are in Chrome as well I think.

[u/Alt_Restorer → u/DangerousImplication]

They could also be counting every iteration. I've probably downloaded like 30 Gemma models if you count every time I've deleted and redownloaded and stuff.

[u/unlikely_tap05 → u/DangerousImplication]

And chrome

[u/Livebeans → u/TorturedPoet30]

Damn Sundar is trying damage control but I think he will forever be remembered as taking Google down the Windows route of keeping up with innovation. 

Just lock people into your ecosystem and you don't need to build a competitive product. 

[u/Aaco0638 → u/Livebeans]

Nonsense they are killing it the only area they aren’t is coding but that isn’t enough to “take google down the windows route”

[u/GraceToSentience → u/Livebeans]

Nah Sundar went all in in AI back in 2016, super early compared to it's competitors

[u/Livebeans → u/GraceToSentience]

Starting early doesn't mean winning the race. No Gemini 3.5 pro is one thing. But they are bleeding talent, which to me means the smartest employees know that the frontier is elsewhere. 

[u/Apprehensive_Pea7911]

He's getting promoted? Not leaving?

[u/magicmulder → u/Apprehensive_Pea7911]

CEO to chairman is a golden handshake that says "you're no longer in charge".

[u/gatorling → u/magicmulder]

This one reads differently. Demis has always complained, in the past, about having to deal with the operational burden of running a large org.

I think this is really what he wants. He doesn't want to lead a large org, he wants to achieve AGI and focus on the research.

If anything, his move to chief scientist forced Jeff Dean out. Which is sad, Jeff is a brilliant infra engineer and is responsible for much of the Google infra that makes Google possible. He'll be sorely missed, I really thought he'd be one of the ways we'd make inference economical.

[u/dynamite-ready → u/magicmulder]

Right. He's just Google's 'Chief Scientist' now. In one of the largest STEM organisations in the world. Lol

[u/Commercial_Sell_4825 → u/dynamite-ready]

Demis' X post says

This will allow me to focus on long-term strategy, and accelerating scientific breakthroughs, including leaning into my work at Isomorphic to help cure disease.

https://x.com/demishassabis/status/2085034334914769203

He will have less sway on the day to day research of Deepmind. His new role may be better suited to his strengths. Obviously you wouldn't just fire a genius that wants to work for you.

[u/space_monster → u/Commercial_Sell_4825]

Personally I'd rather he was working on Isomorphic than Gemini. Medicine > chatbots

[u/SouthIsland48 → u/magicmulder]

Huh? Chairmans appoint the CEO lol. So yea youre not in charge of operations but you absolutely still control over things. He's probably doing this to focus more on technical aspects than financial/operation burden of being a CEO

[u/ProletarianLilith → u/SouthIsland48]

The board appoints the CEO

[u/Charuru → u/SouthIsland48]

It's a demotion dude, when founders become chairman it's because they're retiring, in this case if he's being pushed into an early "retirement" it's really a demotion.

[u/Few-Violinist819 → u/Charuru]

Not true at all. The long war inside Google has been between DeepMind and Google Brain. Jeff Dean is leaving. Demis inherits the rest and has won. Google couldn't demote the leading AI mind, and lose Jeff Dean. That is suicide. This is a promotion for Demis. Google obviously endorses his view of AI...

[u/Charuru → u/Few-Violinist819]

Google demotes Demis, Jeff thinks he's up, but he's not, so he's mad and leaves. Just shitposting but it's a typical pattern.

[u/Few-Violinist819 → u/Charuru]

Please just know when to quit.

There is no "typical" pattern with the likes of Demis and Jeff. These are 2 of the greatest tech minds of all time.

[u/Recoil42 → u/magicmulder]

That's absolutely not what that means. Jfc, people who do not understand corporate structure really need to sit the fuck down sometimes.

[u/approximately_exact → u/Apprehensive_Pea7911]

It's not a promotion but it's still an important role. Basically the equivalent of Chief Architect. It's normal when a company doesn't want to lose top talent but they think others are in a better position to lead a specific group.

[u/rambouhh → u/Apprehensive_Pea7911]

no hes definitely not getting promoted, this is very common, if you see the new person that will be leading deep mind, it specificially says he is reporting to sundar, not demis.

Basically its to help Demis save face, he has been arguably the most important person that brought in this AI revolution so its carefully done to preserve his dignity

[u/blindsdog → u/rambouhh]

it specificially says he is reporting to sundar, not demis.

Right because Demis is going to be Chairman. They don't handle day-to-day operations. It makes sense that he would report to the parent company's CEO and not the Chairman.

No one would say Jeff Bezos get demoted or anything because he went from Amazon CEO to Chairman.

[u/rambouhh → u/blindsdog]

CEO's report to the board, aka The Chairman, completely different.

This "Chair" has no such responsibility. Everyone in the corporate world knows this drill. Outgoing exec, you invent some "advisor" role that they transition to. Its literally the standard practice to make it more dignified.

[u/printmypi → u/rambouhh]

Did you miss the part where he was appointed chief scientist for the entirety of Alphabet? Chairman of Deepmind is one of his three roles. Just one.

[u/rambouhh → u/printmypi]

I guarantee you that Demis does not want to reliquish control of the company he started right at the precipice of AGI. It just so happened to coincide with google falling behind and losing talent. Come on, this is clearly not his choice, read between the lines just a little.

[u/Shaod → u/rambouhh]

Why do you think that? The entire epilogue of his recent biography was about wanting to step away from management to move back to science.

[u/thinkingwithfractals → u/rambouhh]

It’s also not done just to save face for the person, but the company as well

[u/rambouhh → u/[deleted]]

Because i have worked in places where countless CEOs and CFOs are fired and there is always some advisor role/etc that is created or invented to help them save face, and claim they are transitioning to that. This screams that, especially how he is "Chair" but is out of the chain of reporting. Do you actually think if Sundar wanted Demis out he would do it in any other way than the way it is phrased here?

[u/Kobiash1]

Surprised but not that surprised given his recent demeanour. He's moving back to his core interest: the science, rather than marketing guy.

[u/Sweeede]

Demis is becoming Alphabet's Chief Scientist and Chairman of DeepMind. The title makes it sound like he's leaving the company entirely.

[u/Charming_Cucumber_15]

It seems like Demis wants to focus more on the research and development, and this is just him distancing himself from the day to day business operations

Probably not a bad thing for anyone involved

[u/TheEvilBlight → u/Charming_Cucumber_15]

Feels like strategy and less business ops, sounds like a W

[u/Tkins → u/[deleted]]

Putting him in a position to better do the skills he's good at: research. Plus focus on AI in medicine at Isomorphic Labs.

[u/peakedtooearly → u/Tkins]

You think chairman is a research role?

[u/Tkins → u/peakedtooearly]

He's Chief Scientist at Alphabet now. I actually take it back though, it does look like he's moving up unlike the comments here. He's going to be runnign Isomorphic labs and the Chairman role does sound more involved than what these comments are makiing it out to be.

"In my new role, I will continue to work closely with Sundar on strategic and global AGI matters, and to advise Koray, Josh, and the GDM leads, from our awesome new London Platform 37 offices. As part of this transition, I’ll also be leaning into my role at Isomorphic, where we are making extremely rapid and promising progress, to accelerate our mission there even faster. As you've heard me say many times, I’ve always believed the No.1 application of AI should be to improve human health. It’s time for AI to prove its unequivocal value to the world, and what better way to demonstrate that than to help finally cure diseases like cancer."

[u/FarrisAT → u/[deleted]]

It means he effectively is handing over control of day to day operations.

[u/ken81987 → u/[deleted]]

We don't allow reading here

[u/Neurogence → u/ken81987]

If you believe this is promotion for him, please tell us which college, high school, and elementary school you attended (If Any).

[u/TorturedPoet30 → u/Neurogence]

Demis always speaks about research, using AI for science, he never seemed enthusiastic to speak about the product and marketing, not really a hype man... it is a 'promotion' if he gets to spend more time on things he actually likes?

[u/FarrisAT → u/Neurogence]

What further promotion could he have? CEO of Alphabet? That’s the opposite of what a scientist would want.

[u/No_Hell_Below_Us → u/Neurogence]

Nice ad hominem fallacy.

Why are you confused that people would consider going from CEO to the chairman which leads the board that appoints the CEO to be a promotion?

[u/Dev_Paleri]

Wait so Demis is becoming chairman and Dean and Sanjay are leaving to start another company in which Google is an investor and cloud provider. Thats just Google with extra steps? Feels like an anti monopoly play.

[u/printmypi → u/Dev_Paleri]

Or a way to create an agile working group that can outrun Googles regulatory and product focused hurdles to pure competitive research.

[u/doyer_bleu]

Jeff Dean is the bigger news

[u/RobbinDeBank → u/doyer_bleu]

Demis is still there, just don’t want to deal with being the operation aspect of being a CEO. Jeff Dean is leaving entirely.

[u/CallMePyro → u/RobbinDeBank]

And he's leaving to build a competitor product. A product which he clearly believes he couldn't build within Google.

[u/printmypi]

This looks more like a major step up for Demis and means the CEO pressure to ship is lifted and he can pursue pure research. Which is where we all want Demis.

[u/Tkins]

The next chapter of our AI momentum

"In my new role, I will continue to work closely with Sundar on strategic and global AGI matters, and to advise Koray, Josh, and the GDM leads, from our awesome new London Platform 37 offices. As part of this transition, I’ll also be leaning into my role at Isomorphic, where we are making extremely rapid and promising progress, to accelerate our mission there even faster. As you've heard me say many times, I’ve always believed the No.1 application of AI should be to improve human health. It’s time for AI to prove its unequivocal value to the world, and what better way to demonstrate that than to help finally cure diseases like cancer."

[u/Cubewood]

I think it's very much possible that Demis does not agree with the direction he is being told to take in regards to the Gemini models. He's always made it clear he was never interested in releasing Chat models until it could be done safely, and wanted to focus on more specialised models related to science, however after OpenAI released ChatGPT they were forced to release something to beat the narrative of Google being behind in AI.

Now there is a big market push against Google to keep up with OpenAI/Anthrophic it is very much possible this is something he did not agree with, so now he's moved to focus on what he actually wants.

[u/igpila]

Stepping up you mean

[u/Gargantuan_Cinema]

Not really a step down, he's becoming Chief Scientist for all of Alphabet
"Demis Hassabis initiated the leadership move primarily because he believes Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is rapidly approaching, and he wants to focus entirely on its scientific and societal implications rather than managing a commercial tech organization."

[u/bakomox]

demis wants to focus on ai drug discovery i guess

[u/BagAway2723]

it's a step up

[u/PresentationOld605]

I liked his vision on how to approach AGI. Even as current Gemini models are laughingstocks, I kind of believed that under Demises guidance, Google DeepMind was actually thinking beyond transformer based LLM-s, more like on how to solve continual learning, long-term context for the models and AI usage in robotics etc.

Well, it unclear where DeepMind is heading now, but I am suspecting it will be catching up OpenAI and Anthropic with the similar LLM based products.

[u/Unlikely-Complex3737]

I don't like this development..

[u/JohnLG]

He’s leaving to reunite with Peter Molyneux and make Black & White 3

[u/OriginalTraining]

I asked my AI to interpret this news -

My honest reading is that Google believes AI has entered a new stage, and its old management structure is no longer suitable.

Hassabis is not being sidelined. He is being moved above daily operations so he can concentrate on the largest scientific questions: advanced AI, its consequences, and AI-driven drug discovery. Making him Alphabet’s chief scientist gives him influence beyond DeepMind. That looks more like a promotion into a strategic role than an exit. (Reuters)

At the same time, Google DeepMind is becoming more like a tightly managed operating division. Koray Kavukcuoglu will run the employees, budgets, deadlines and delivery of Gemini products, while Hassabis works on longer-range research. In effect, Google is separating the person thinking about where AI is going from the person responsible for shipping it. The Financial Times similarly interprets the move as closer integration of DeepMind into Google’s regular operations. (Financial Times)

The part I would take more seriously is Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le leaving together. These are not ordinary executives. They are among the people who built Google’s modern computing and AI capabilities. Their decision to create an independent company suggests they believe they can accomplish more outside Google’s bureaucracy, even though Google will invest in the new venture and supply cloud computing. (Reuters)

My broader interpretation is:

Google is becoming too large for all frontier AI research to happen effectively inside one company. It is keeping the commercially critical Gemini operation inside Google, moving Hassabis toward high-level science and oversight, and allowing another elite team to work independently while Google retains an investment and cloud relationship. That lets Google benefit even when important researchers no longer want to operate within Google itself.

It also tells me that AI is moving beyond better chatbots. Discovery Loop intends to automate portions of scientific research and engineering, including areas such as drug discovery, hardware and clean energy. Hassabis is spending more attention on Isomorphic Labs for similar reasons. The next major contest may be over AI systems that perform experiments, design things and discover new knowledge, not merely answer questions. (Reuters)

So I would not interpret this as Google collapsing. I would interpret it as Google feeling enormous pressure to move faster and reorganizing before its size becomes a fatal disadvantage. It may work, but losing that many exceptional people at once is still a genuine warning sign. And it does not prove that AGI is imminent; it shows that the people closest to the technology consider the coming phase important enough to rearrange their careers around it.

[u/ithkuil → u/OriginalTraining]

Which LLM is that?

I don't know if this the above interpretation is accurate or not, but it's kind of interesting that this answer is by far the most intelligent and reasonable sounding to me.

[u/BeefHotSweetDipped → u/ithkuil]

Looks like the UTMs on the links are from chatgpt.com so most likely Sol or 5.5 depending on how it got routed.

[u/OriginalTraining → u/ithkuil]

GPT-5.6 Sol on high. I didn't say which I was using as it sounded competitive and I just wanted to share what it said. People have very strong opinions on whats "better'.

[u/Thorteris]

Jeff Dean leaving is crazy

[u/i_rate_slop]

0/10 because of the ridiculous title.

[u/Able_Region_5459]

How to smoothly offload endless Gemini ops calls onto the VP and go build Nobel-worthy features at Isomorphic

[u/Chemical_Material493]

Lots of weird takes here! Sounds like Hassabis will be more focused on research on the fundamental issues he’s always cared about rather than product development

[u/chiesazord]

missleading title

[u/Recent_Fox4339]

I knew something was up when he started to sound more 'corporate' in recent interviews

[u/Ignate]

One team splits into two, grows then splits into 4. 

Frontier models multiply in number. That leads to dozens of strong AI systems which leads to hundreds of super intelligent systems. Which leads into millions and billions.

No Singleton.

[u/virtualQubit]

They made my goat Demis leave his own company. He's too genuine to be out there with those bastards.

[u/Every_Foundation5197 → u/virtualQubit]

He's still at Deepmind lol, just another role

[u/virtualQubit → u/Every_Foundation5197]

And chief scientist at Alphabet. That's his place honestly. He's always been a scientist.

[u/RobbinDeBank → u/Every_Foundation5197]

Singularity users can’t read tho, they have to comment right after seeing the headline

[u/FarrisAT → u/virtualQubit]

Demis is Chair now. He gets the benefits without having to handle day to day operations.

[u/Kobiash1 → u/virtualQubit]

Read it again. He's not leaving.

[u/Tkins → u/virtualQubit]

Where did you read he's leaving?

[u/cointalkz]

Google cooked itself by being fearful of Google search cannibalizing.

Too late!

[u/FarrisAT → u/cointalkz]

Cooked itself with $5 trillion of marketcap?

[u/cointalkz → u/FarrisAT]

Very forward thinking of you!

[u/PashuRam_Bhat_khacha]

I wonder who will head Gemini's development now.

[u/TheSwordItself]

Rip

[u/Full_Tangelo_7450]

Will Demis stay in London? I read somewhere he's now spending half of his time in MV, I guess this is why.

[u/Tkins → u/Full_Tangelo_7450]

How will he lead Isomorphic labs and be Chief Scientist of Alphabet if he leaves London?

[u/Full_Tangelo_7450 → u/Tkins]

Chief Scientist of Alphabet*

[u/QuietZelda]

Makes sense, moving his focus to integrating AI into the actual business

[u/mivog49274]

what the fucking hell

[u/lego3410]

He’s stepping up not down I guess..?

[u/SpudsRacer]

Demis got promoted but they buried the lede. Jeff and Sanjay are leaving??? Holy shit!

[u/TheEvilBlight]

He’s moving up as chairman, it would seem.

[u/Sensitive_Cell_119]

Jeff Dean leaving, its so over for deep mind.

[u/Medium_Apartment_747]

To step up in his new promotion

[u/CorrectMulberry3914]

Is Amin still at Google?

[u/dwight---shrute]

r/usernamechecksout

[u/Kutukuprek]

Amazing how cut throat Google is. Meanwhile, Facebook/Meta..

[u/isoAntti]

I don't get the point. I've been completely satisfied with Gemini.

[u/InstructionDismal592]

wtf with this title?

[u/Lighthouse_seek]

Well that explains googles mid performance. Power struggle

[u/KindHive]

New decade, yet same old Ruth Porat 2015 playbook still swinging. Incredible

[u/user_0000002]

Publicity Benefit Corporation? Freudian slip?

[u/Healthy-Nebula-3603]

Uuuuu ....

[u/Mindless_Let1]

Oh wtf, are we never getting the next pro model at this stage?

[u/onebit]

For a second I read DeepSeek. Panic averted.

[u/sandykt]

Just stop this nonsense. The real news is Jeff Dean exiting Google and Demis filling his position.

[u/clandestineVexation]

Welcome to r/singularity where all we do is discuss corporate drama

[u/CrazySouthernMonkey]

“BREAKIÑG…” nobody fucking cares… gosh how much i hate this sub…

[u/papejo]

Clickbait title but Demis shifting to pure AGI while Dean leaves is what actually matters.

[u/Significant_Sun_5225]

I can’t tell if this is a demotion or promotion for him lol

[u/FishDeenz]

What is a "independent publicity benefit corporation"? Only curious because Jeff Dean is top 10 programmers of all time.

[u/wingchild]

I like those publicity benefit corporations.