Departures of Top Google AI Talent Weigh on Shares

Google has long relied on DeepMind and leading researchers as the foundation of its AI competitiveness. John Jumper won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his AlphaFold research. With senior executives now leaving for Anthropic and OpenAI, investors are reassessing Alphabet’s ability to retain talent and whether its vast AI capital spending can translate into revenue and profit.

Four people have left Google’s AI team over the past week, with John Jumper joining Anthropic and Noam Shazeer moving to OpenAI. The news briefly sent Alphabet shares down more than 5%, while some reports put the intraday decline at 7%, bringing the stock close to Berkshire Hathaway’s purchase price. DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis subsequently addressed concerns about the competition for talent publicly.