Back to today’s briefing

Story perspectives

Top AI Talent Defects to Anthropic, OpenAI; Alphabet Slides $245B

6/25/2026

25 2 Full Breakdown

Summary

Story summary

Senior AI researchers Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel announced they will leave Google to join Anthropic.
Noam Shazeer, co-author of the 2017 “Attention Is All You Need” paper, announced his move to OpenAI.
DeepMind director John Jumper, a 2024 Nobel Prize laureate for AlphaFold, said he will also join Anthropic.
John Jumper's departure erased about 6% from Alphabet shares, equal to more than $245 billion in market value in one session.

History

Historical Context

DeepMind, founded in London in November 2010 by Demis Hassabis, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman, was bought by Google on 26 January 2014 for about $400 million. The deal anchored Alphabet’s AI push, leading to breakthroughs like AlphaGo. Today, senior researchers such as Jonas Adler and Noam Shazeer are leaving, echoing earlier talent shifts that have reshaped the company’s AI strategy.

1 of 2

Story summary

Senior AI researchers Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel announced they will leave Google to join Anthropic.
Noam Shazeer, co-author of the 2017 “Attention Is All You Need” paper, announced his move to OpenAI.
DeepMind director John Jumper, a 2024 Nobel Prize laureate for AlphaFold, said he will also join Anthropic.
John Jumper's departure erased about 6% from Alphabet shares, equal to more than $245 billion in market value in one session.

1 / 2