Jeff Dean’s striking presence at an artificial intelligence conference, shortly after Google launched its Gemini chatbot in 2023, exemplified his relevance in the sector. The Google executive had to rush to a talk, amid requests for photos with the influential technology leader.
Jeff Dean’s departure from Google represents a significant transition. The artificial intelligence pioneer, who dedicated more than two decades to the company, announced his departure along with colleagues Sanjay Ghemawat, Quoc Le and Oriol Vinyals to establish a new startup called Discovery Loop. This move is part of a broader executive restructuring, which saw Demis Hassabis, head of Google DeepMind, take on the role of president at the AI laboratory.
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Dean’s departure is seen as one of the most significant losses in Google’s AI business in many years, coming at a time of uncertainty about the company’s ability to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic PBC. Current and former employees have indicated that internal morale at Google has diminished following the restructuring of AI leadership, predicting that Dean’s absence will make it difficult to attract new top AI talent.
Dean, who arrived at Google as its 30th employee in 1999, has played a central role in the development of nearly every major product at the company, from search and advertising to chips, culminating in his leadership in advances in artificial intelligence as chief scientist. Dogus Cubuk, who worked with Dean at Google for years and counts him as an investor in his startup Periodic Labs, said that “he created modern deep learning in many ways.”
As co-founder of Google Brain in 2011, Dean was a prominent figure in the company’s AI initiatives for 15 years. In 2016, he and twenty-four other co-authors, including Ghemawat, released TensorFlow, an open source software that simplifies the creation of artificial intelligence systems. Additionally, he and Ghemawat developed MapReduce to optimize the processing of large volumes of data.
His career was also marked by controversies. Years ago, two leaders of Google’s ethical AI team were fired after Dean expressed concerns about a study they had published on the risks of large language models. Although Dean was an early supporter of the researchers, the relationship frayed, in part, because the scientists felt he was slow to respond to a report of harassment. At the time, Google defended the way it handled the situation.
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Dean has also, at times, taken public stances on controversial issues. Earlier this year, he criticized the killing of protesters by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in a post on X. He later joined other Google and OpenAI contributors to present a legal opinion in support of Anthropic PBC in its legal dispute with the Pentagon.
In recent years, Dean’s role has diminished in operations and products, after Google combined Brain and DeepMind under Hassabis. However, his influence remained, acting as a liaison between Google’s AI software and chip teams, with a focus on further integrating the development of these internal efforts.
Throughout his career, Dean has remained a central figure at Google, not only shaping its most crucial technology work but also personifying its culture. Dogus Cubuk stated that “he’s probably the most ‘Google’ person to ever exist at Google.” A source described the mood at his farewell party as cheerful, with many employees happy for him.
Dean’s influence has extended beyond Google’s domains, with investments in more than a hundred startups since 2014, according to data from PitchBook. Most of these contributions occurred in the last three years, following the accelerated growth of artificial intelligence.
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With his own startup, Dean aims to employ artificial intelligence to automate complex tasks in science and engineering. Discovery Loop plans to be its initial customer, before expanding into broader approaches, covering areas such as hardware and materials design, drug discovery and clean energy. The startup did not make Dean available for comment.
Matt McIlwain, managing director of Madrona Ventures, explained that “Demis and Jeff are prioritizing their passion for applying AI to scientific discovery and related innovations especially in the life sciences space.” Alphabet is among the investors in Dean’s new startup. Discovery Loop also plans to utilize Google’s computing resources, meaning the tech giant can continue to benefit from Dean’s work in the near future.
Oren Etzioni, professor emeritus at the University of Washington and founding CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, offered an analogy: “You know the famous phrase, ‘You’re not losing a son, you’re gaining a daughter-in-law?’ Here, you’re losing a Jeff Dean, but you’re also gaining a Jeff Dean elsewhere in the Alphabet family.”