Foreign media outlet Pathfounders reported on the 7th local time that 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Demis Hassabis had considered leaving the company before Alphabet’s recent major reshuffling of its artificial intelligence executives.
Alphabet announced on the 5th of this month local time that Hassabis would move from CEO of Google DeepMind to chairman while also serving as Alphabet’s chief scientist. Former Alphabet chief scientist Jeff Dean and several colleagues departed to found Discovery Loop.
Sources revealed that Hassabis originally wanted to leave at the same time as Jeff Dean, but Alphabet believed that losing two artificial intelligence business leaders within a short period would cause its stock price to crash.
Hassabis was ultimately persuaded to become chairman of Google Deepmind, allowing him to devote more energy to artificial intelligence research projects such as Isomorphic Labs, while also creating a smoother transition path for a possible departure in the future.