Google loses top AI researchers to Anthropic, OpenAI
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- Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel are leaving Google for Anthropic, per Bloomberg, after playing key roles in developing Google's Gemini model.
- John Jumper, Google DeepMind director and 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry co-winner (with Demis Hassabis) for AlphaFold protein-structure prediction, said he is leaving for Anthropic.
- Noam Shazeer announced last week he is leaving Google for OpenAI — after Google had effectively acqui-hired his Character.AI startup for $2.7 billion in part to bring him back to work on Gemini.
- Shazeer had been at Google since 2000, with a three-year break to build Character.AI.
- OpenAI and Anthropic, both preparing to go public, have a recruitment opening tied to offering equity to top AI talent.
Why it matters: Google paid $2.7 billion to acqui-hire Character.AI in part to retain Shazeer for Gemini — and he is now heading to OpenAI anyway. With a Nobel laureate (Jumper) and two key Gemini developers (Adler, Pritzel) departing in the same window, Google is losing exactly the talent its biggest recent AI deal was meant to lock in.
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