He’s replacing Jeff Dean as Chief Scientist of Alphabet, this could be a step towards more control over Google as a whole (including TPUs and strategic decisions about GDM). But the overall exodus doesn’t suggest much confidence in Gemini 4 catching up to the frontier, and there’s now a solid track record of failing to catch up (I think Meta has a better chance in 2027 than GDM does). So staying in charge of GDM doesn’t offer Hassabis more accolades, he might even want to distance himself from its continued failures (while keeping the option of taking partial credit if they start succeeding).
He’s replacing Jeff Dean as Chief Scientist of Alphabet, this could be a step towards more control over Google as a whole (including TPUs and strategic decisions about GDM). But the overall exodus doesn’t suggest much confidence in Gemini 4 catching up to the frontier, and there’s now a solid track record of failing to catch up (I think Meta has a better chance in 2027 than GDM does). So staying in charge of GDM doesn’t offer Hassabis more accolades, he might even want to distance himself from its continued failures (while keeping the option of taking partial credit if they start succeeding).
(Curious about the disagree-votes.)