Google is seeing another top level exit. Google DeepMind Vice President John Jumper is leaving the company to join Anthropic PBC. Jumper won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on artificial intelligence. Jumper won the chemistry Nobel alongside Google Deepmind CEO Demis Hassabis for creating an AI model that can predict the structure of proteins called AlphaFold. Over the years, Jumper has been a key member of Google’s AI coding development team and is best known for spearheading Google’s AlphaFold team. Jumper has also won a Marshall Scholar to study at Cambridge in 2007 and received a PhD in theoretical chemistry from the University of Chicago.
Google AI CEO Demis Hassabis’ ‘thanks note’
Announcing his exit, on X, formerly Twitter, Jumper wrote, “A bit of news: After nearly 9 years, I have decided to leave Google DeepMind and join Anthropic (after taking some time to recharge). I am incredibly grateful for my time at GDM @demishassabis took a real chance letting me lead the AlphaFold team just six months after finishing my PhD, and the entire GDM team taught me so much about how to do great science. GDM is a special place, and I’ll still be excited to hear about what amazing things they discover next.“ A spokesperson for Google DeepMind confirmed Jumper’s departure in a statement and said the company was grateful for his contributions to DeepMind’s work in advancing science and AI. Responding to Jumper’s post on X, Hassabis wrote, “Thanks John for an extraordinary partnership and wonderful collaboration over the past 9 years! What we achieved with AlphaFold changed the world, and showed the field what was possible with AI for science and medicine, lighting the way for how AI can benefit humanity.” His departure comes just days after one of Google’s most prominent researchers, Noam Shazeer announced that he is leaving. VP of engineering at Google and the co-lead of Gemini, Noam Shazeer, has announced he is joining OpenAI. In a post on X, he wrote, “I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there. It was a difficult decision to move on. I’m incredibly proud of the amazing team at Google and everything we’ve built together. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with all of you.”Shazeer co-authored a seminal paper that helped catalyze the AI boom. Prior to his work as a Gemini co-lead, Shazeer worked as a software engineer from 2000 through 2021, acting as the CEO of Character.ai from late 2021 through 2024 when he returned to Google. A licensing deal between Google and Character.ai was made that same month.
