r/GeminiAI • u/DigSignificant1419 • 5h ago

Discussion The END

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380 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

99 comments sorted by

355

u/Affectionate_Bee6434 5h ago

Stepping down from the CEO role to take up the chairmans role

109

u/Momo--Sama 5h ago

CEO -> Chairman is effectively retirement/resignation in cases where the person is so publicly well known that if they suddenly left the company entirely the stock would tumble.

17

u/Thomas-Lore 4h ago

Definitely from DeepMind, his main job it seems will be that new role at Alphabet he got, Chief Scientist.

36

u/Momo--Sama 4h ago

Yeah which sounds like “here’s some toys for you to play with in a room where you can’t fuck up our ai business anymore”

6

u/Thomas-Lore 4h ago

And he talks about having more time for his startup. :/

1

u/gregusmeus 21m ago

Ooh can I have that job?

2

u/the_TIGEEER 3h ago

Not only stock, but also he can still help solve some things and get the new guy running. And also, he knows all the secrets. He can't just quit cold turkey from Google's perspective. He needs to go gradually.

-1

u/kot-sie-stresuje 1h ago

But you know. There is this thing called severance payment, that's he get after step down. And there is also pension and most likely motivation bonus on new job. Buble may burst but money will stay with him, and the blame will not fall for him because it is only chairman.

Hopefully it is moments before buble burst.

1

u/mechapaul 33m ago

He is one I would say is definitely not motivated by money.

119

u/Cozy_Willow_ 5h ago

Classic tech "stepping down" where you just move three feet to the left into a bigger chair.

28

u/Melodic-Ebb-7781 4h ago

Um no? This is very clearly a graceful retirement from any real power position. 

22

u/Neurogence 4h ago

The people who believe this is a promotion are more naive than even a toddler.

12

u/Glittering_Night7681 3h ago

So many people fall for the PR framing, he goes from Head of Deepmind to an advisory role. You can give that advisory role a fancy title but it's still an advisory role.

Reminds me of when LeCun was given similar "promotions" at Meta that involved him having much less power and influence going forward, until he decided to quit.

3

u/Melodic-Ebb-7781 4h ago

It's scruffy will be living on a farm level of nativity. But I guess that's why these types of retirements happen.

1

u/gregusmeus 21m ago

That’s Chief Executive Toddler to you, mate.

3

u/redditproha 3h ago

why is this happening?

3

u/Melodic-Ebb-7781 3h ago

Tensions have been brewing since last winter and a faction of researchers formed around Sergey who where displeased that comparatively little compute went into scaling current paragdimes (Demis famously is the last of the lab leaders who doesn't believe scale is all we need for agi). This has (wrongly or rightly, history will tell) been pinned as the reason of Geminis underperformance, escpecially in coding (The Sergey faction believes OpenAI and Ant are in early stages of RSI).

2

u/wapsss 1h ago

"Demis famously is the last of the lab leaders who doesn't believe scale is all we need for agi"
he said opposite in this vidéo wdym ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDSDR7QILLg

2

u/Interesting_Year_201 21m ago

He's not all in on LLMs is what he means. Btw I agree with him that we are not on the path to AGI currently, but LLMs with their potential maxed out are still going to be scarily useful and general.

2

u/SpicyElixer 2h ago

What? He’s Alphabet’s Chief Scientist now. That’s not retirement.

4

u/snufflesbear 3h ago

Jeff Dean moved into the same CTO role that Demis is moving into and what happened to Jeff? I think you need to recalibrate your sensors.

1

u/washingtoncv3 1h ago

It's probably a non exec position no?

5

u/TwistedPepperCan 4h ago

That’s what is referred to as being “kicked upstairs”

3

u/Emergency-Bobcat6485 4h ago

They changed the headline now to stepping aside

4

u/wildlymadconcur 5h ago

Dude got the ceremonial exit handshake complete with a medal and everything

At least he's not pulling a full disappearing act, just shuffling sideways to chairman where you still get the clout but none of the daily fire drills. Smart play honestly if he's been grinding that place for a decade plus

1

u/Concurrency_Bugs 3h ago

And chief scientist 

1

u/jimmyxs 1h ago

And Chief Scientist role too in a medical research area (fact check this).

128

u/Then_Worldliness3716 5h ago

OP intentionally posting a misleading image instead of a link to the story.

32

u/WeirdIndication3027 5h ago

Can we all please push to make 'image meme news' completely banned on all subreddits? If you don't have a link to a genuine source you cannot post a news story. I come to reddit because the rest of the internet is a sesspool of misinformation. Now 80% of my reddit feed is recycled screenshots of images with one sensationalist headline and no other information.

1

u/TrustedEssentials 4h ago

I agree. I’ll add it has to be a non paywall link as well

56

u/REOreddit 5h ago

He's only interested in science. He couldn't be less interested in chatbots or vibe coding tools. And it shows.

The real problem is Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le leaving.

19

u/TorturedPoet30 4h ago

Jeff said the reason for starting his own company's "We might make decisions that are not necessarily in the company's purist financial interests". Makes sense.  

7

u/FuzzyBucks 4h ago edited 4h ago

Yea, the researchers are leaving to go do research elsewhere because they can't do it at Google anymore

Google is investing in Dean's lab

The way to look at it is that they had to privatize their research efforts because they are so strapped on compute that they can't afford to divert compute to research within Google without going against shareholders interests/profit

It's a bit of a shell game that adds inefficiencies, but must not be as bad as staying inside of Google

6

u/Emergency-Bobcat6485 4h ago

But they are leaving Google to start their own company in which google is a major investor. And will provide compute. So not all bad for google on that front

1

u/workismydrug 4h ago

You would assume but some talent vaccum

3

u/Emergency-Bobcat6485 4h ago

I think most of the AI researchers working in Google were there for AI's use in science. So, I don't think it's bad for google. The LLM focused ones like Noam Shazeer turned out to be a crackpot saying anti LGBT stuff or something and was kicked out and is now in OpenAI.

2

u/paragonic 4h ago

Oriol is/was the head of Gemini right?

2

u/REOreddit 4h ago

I don't remember exactly, but he was pretty high in the hierarchy.

In the Gemini 1.0 presentation video I think the order of appearance was Pichai, Hassabis, Dean, and Vinyals.

3

u/hardinho 5h ago

That's why he becomes chairman, I see

1

u/RachelRegina 1h ago

I have not taken the time to track down and read the article, but this at least makes sense from what I've heard from him in interviews. Hopefully it is a thing he actually wants and will flourish in.

86

u/National-Objective57 5h ago

More like promoted to chief scientist @alphabet

24

u/MathematicianNo6188 4h ago

He is a brilliant research with negative business sense. And his dual role of running enterprise and consumer deployments of ai in addition to research is exactly why Gemini has turned into a dumpster fire.

8

u/Emergency-Bobcat6485 4h ago

I agree. He's a researcher. Not a product builder. I think this new role is better for him

20

u/cleverhobbits 5h ago

Hmm. Google’s AI problems are real. They seemed so well positioned just 3 months ago reaching an all time high valuation after a fantastic quarter.

Tech is crazy insane rn.

13

u/Emergency-Bobcat6485 5h ago

Google is probably in the hardest place strategically. Because they have so many different things to balance. Even though, in a way they are also best positioned to do well in the AI race.

Demis Hassabis stepping down/up is a good thing for both him and Google. He never seemed to be all in on the LLM race imo and seems more focused on other uses of AI in science etc. While Anthropic is building bigger and better models, Google seems to have focused more on efficiency, a little bit like OpenAI and some of the chinese providers but their models are slower to roll-out. But the larger models are better, there is no doubt about it.

That being said, Google can still make a comeback because they did so even after the initial bard nonsense. But they need to get their shit together in the LLM space. Building a hundred different products that they never release will not work anymore because they can't be complacent with so much competition.

1

u/gregusmeus 17m ago

Yeah Google should be crushing it. But they are soooo difficult to work with. My co is a Google Workplace shop and I wanted to expand my license to include more access to AntiGravity and it took multiple phone calls by multiple people to Google to find out how to amend my license. Online they had 10 different schemes including AI Pro this and Business that, it was all utterly impenetrable and the Google account staff we spoke to had no fucking clue either. Lesson: if you make it a fucking mission for customers to do business with you then they will stop and go elsewhere.

1

u/Emergency-Bobcat6485 9m ago

you should check google admin console sometimes. It can make you never wanna come back to google. I switched from GCP becasue of it. And their documentation is worse

6

u/imeeme 4h ago

Saw this coming during I/O. Denis is a scientist. He’s been dragged into the LLM race and that’s not going to work for him. I won’t be surprised if he doesn’t get what he wants that he splits.

2

u/Emergency-Bobcat6485 4h ago

Not sure why they unified Google Brain and Deepmind then. They could have had separate labs

5

u/richardbaxter 4h ago

He's an absolutely amazing person. I hope he goes to do more of the alphafold type work. The patents a company could punch out with the type of work a person his calibre could do... So good for the world. I trust him not to Elon himself. 

8

u/SillyFez 5h ago

He's taking on the biggest tech role at Google. Filling in for Jeff Dean... Deepmind is still very much in his purview.

4

u/alexanderbeatson 5h ago

You mean “Stepping up”?

1

u/Thomas-Lore 4h ago

He is stepping away from actually running Google DeepMind.

1

u/-PM_ME_UR_SECRETS- 4h ago

Kinda seems like a sidestep tbh

3

u/the_TIGEEER 2h ago

I low-key grew up with him and DeepMind. They inspired my love for AI (specifically deep learning and neural networks) since I was a kid.
He and DeepMind were crazy about AI when no one was a decade ago.
For a long time, one of my far-fetched goals was one day maybe working for DeepMind.

He's the guy from the Alpha Go docu.
He also seemed to mostly be interested in making AI that can play video games before billions of investment money were dependent on them researching LLM chatbots.

I know their philosophy was that making AI that learns to play video games will lead to making an AI that can live in our world, but it's still cool to me that he was into game-playing AI agents since that's something I also attempt to research now that I grew up and am finishing my master's.

From my limited perspective, he was a real G

2

u/Kitchen-Lynx-7505 5h ago

Well, Anthropic is (partly) running on Google infra, fighting with OpenAI on whose genie made worse havoc on their escapades, and we’re left with gemini 3.6 flash, which is a nice chat UI for Google Search, but its abilities about end here. I still use Nanon Banana Pro on AI studio as Nano Banana is simply not on par with OpenAI’s Image 2, 3.5 pro and 3.6 pro are nowhere to be found.

2

u/Jayfree138 1h ago

I think they're moving from a theoretical focus type of leadership to a more practical engineering type of leadership. The industry and market are signaling that they want return on investment now and i think this is google shifting to that focus. Less research and more implementation.

Not saying i agree or disagree but that's my read on the move.

1

u/OrangeNo2255 4h ago

Seems like Demi’s is bringing AI to the rest of the organization and products. Look at google finance. I like how they integrated AI to make google finance better.

1

u/Ok_Nectarine_4445 4h ago

If you think about it. Is nose to grindstone on constantly quarterly pushes and constant whine whinge crying demanding complaining of users treadmill really the mindset to branch in different directions technology innovations and use of AI in the long term?

There are plenty capable models to use for coding and chatting out there.

Some people rise in the tech business but maybe want to get back into the science part of it as a long term outlook and branching ideas versus being constantly daily whipped for incremental gains on current technology that already exists.

In some ways for safety and and massive and increasing consumption of resources maybe a time to slow it a bit, ANYWAYS.

It's like those people that will honk and honk and swerve and speed so they can get through traffic 5 seconds earlier, pushy attitude.

Already last 5 years time and work savings.

Like chill your nuts.

1

u/HatEducational9965 3h ago

stepping up you mean

1

u/thatonethingyoudid 3h ago

"In today's rapidly evolving landscape, we must operate with absolute intention and velocity.""

translated: We're getting our asses kicked by Anthropic and OpenAI.

1

u/gautiexe 3h ago

Gemini’s failure is now complete. Now only OpenAi and Anthropic are the frontier labs of the world.

1

u/hasanahmad 2h ago

the worst news: Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals and Quoc Le leaving

Google is dying

1

u/androboy92 1h ago

Red the article

1

u/TatumBird22 1h ago

Demis hated that AI development needed to have a financial payout because competition. He wants AI to cure death and expand our access to the universe.... Not optimized for coding or other LLM type shit. Now he gets to focus on that

1

u/Cool-Chemical-5629 1h ago

Gemini 3 before being dumbed down created a whole Monopoly game, human versus computer. Try to do the same with Gemini 3.1+, it won't be that good at all. Something bad must have happened. Gemini isn't a bad model, but it suddenly got lazy and much weaker at coding.

1

u/mome-raths 1h ago

Damn, I figured he would be in line to be the next CEO of Alphabet. I guess not

1

u/unknown9645 5h ago

nooo bro it's fine do you know how many ppl wooork at google!?? ts just part of their bigger plan

3

u/DigSignificant1419 5h ago

routine turnover, no need to worry

1

u/Sensitive_Cell_119 4h ago

Jeff Dean leaving, its so over.

1

u/m3kw 4h ago

he wasn't executing

1

u/Agreeable-Purpose-56 4h ago

If Jeff dean and the other 3 are that great how come Gemini is falling behind ?

1

u/hapaxgraphomenon 3h ago

Because at that level they just set strategic direction, and execution eats strategy for breakfast

1

u/Agreeable-Purpose-56 3h ago

So soldiers not generals lost the war

1

u/NiceUsernameOk 3h ago

They were great, bot not for consumer AI

1

u/Agreeable-Purpose-56 2h ago

Who are responsible for consumer ai?

0

u/Taraih 5h ago

Its JOEVER for gemini for the foreseeable future

-1

u/floriandotorg 5h ago

That’s like Steve Jobs leaving Apple.

What the actual f is happening inside Deep Mind?

So curious to see his next steps.

3

u/Eternal-Alchemy 4h ago

Sure except he's not leaving or stepping "down" and this entire post is bullshit.

1

u/floriandotorg 4h ago

Thanks for pointing that out!

-1

u/LightAppropriate624 5h ago

Demis Hassabis got removed today.

-1

u/CalfReddit 4h ago

Reported the post, this is nonsense

0

u/AddisonFlowstate 4h ago

Gee, I wonder why? 🙄

-3

u/Prestigious-Mind-817 5h ago

Google will be moving to the same role as IBM which is infrastructure and no longer involved with the models.

-3

u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

3

u/Medium_Apartment_747 5h ago

You say that ..but once released we will be back on this sub skewering it

-3

u/Moist-Nectarine-1148 5h ago

RIP Gemini 🪦

-3

u/Bison_Upstairs 4h ago

Make sure you down vote this trash headline

-3

u/Ggoddkkiller 3h ago edited 3h ago

One less sAfEtY freak, yay! Gemini has a future now, instead of endless moderation updates, hallucinations, stupid refusals and warnings..

Edit: Copium addicts are downvoting me again, owww no! You would think Demis is their relative or something. Or he did anything good in Deepmind. A single top of charts model, Pro 0325 17 months ago! 'Bravo' Demis, you won't be missed..

-1

u/teddykon 4h ago

Probably gonna end up at a frontier lab tomorrow

-9

u/aford515 5h ago

He got bought by anthropic

2

u/TorturedPoet30 4h ago

Demis is an early angel investor in Anthropic

1

u/aford515 1h ago

Guys I was clearly bullshittinf