Jeff Dean, one of the most influential architects of the modern artificial intelligence ecosystem, is leaving Google. Along with the company's 30th employee, who has been with the corporation since 1999, a group of leading researchers is departing. They are launching a new startup aimed at revolutionizing machine learning and the recursive self-improvement of AI.

People Make the Difference: Who is Leaving Google

According to sources, Jeff Dean will head the new project as CEO. Joining him in leaving the team are key figures whose names have become synonymous with the tech world:

  • Sanjay Ghemawat — Chief Engineer and Senior Research Scientist, one of the creators of Google Brain.
  • Quoc Le — Lead Researcher and one of the founders of Google Brain.
  • Oriol Vinyals — Senior Research Scientist at Google DeepMind, known for his work in neural networks.

This personnel shift is seen as a major turning point for the future of the artificial intelligence market. The scientists plan to create a system capable of making scientific discoveries independently, minimizing human involvement.

Recursive Self-Improvement: A New AI Philosophy

According to the founding team's statement, the startup is exploring the possibilities of creating super-powerful AI systems using AI itself. This process is called recursive self-improvement. The statement emphasizes that traditional science and engineering have long relied on slow, sequential human actions, creating a serious obstacle to accelerating progress.

The next great milestone, according to the founders, lies not only in AI's ability to answer questions but in its capacity to begin making discoveries independently.

Contradictory Data

While major sources (TechCrunch) report on the creation of a startup focused on recursive self-improvement and fundamental discoveries, other analytical materials (such as 3DNews) point to the team's specialization in visual AI. Specifically, it is noted that the team of ex-DeepMind employees will develop visual artificial intelligence technologies, knowing the "recipe" for creating multimodal models similar to Gemini. Thus, there are two versions of the focus: either a broad platform for AI self-learning or a specialized project in computer vision.

Funding and Support

The new project has already attracted the attention of leading venture funds. The initial funding round is led by Radical Ventures and Khosla Ventures. The initiative also involves well-known funds such as Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed, and Doerr Capital. This indicates a high valuation of the project's potential by investors.

Who is Jeff Dean?

To understand the scale of this event, it is important to recall Jeff Dean's contribution to the tech industry. As Google's 30th employee, he made a huge contribution to the creation of the search engine's key infrastructure, including data collection, indexing, and query processing systems. In recent years, he has had a significant influence on the development of Google's multimodal Gemini models.