Google Finally Lets Its Legendary Engineer Escape, Stocks Immediately Sob

KEY POINTS

•Jeff Dean announced his departure from Google Wednesday after 27 years as chief scientist and AI pioneer.
•He plans to launch Discovery Loop, an AI startup alongside three top researchers, including Sanjay Ghemawat.
•Google CEO Sundar Pichai called it 'a privilege' to work with Dean as the company navigates AI leadership changes.

After 27 years, Jeff Dean, Google’s chief scientist and one of its earliest coders – basically the human motherboard of search infrastructure – is leaving to start a new AI startup called Discovery Loop with three top researchers, including Sanjay Ghemawat, his longtime coding sidekick. Google’s not crying, it’s just staking the new company while trying to convince its employees that this reorg isn’t a footnote event. Employees flooded internal boards with memes, joking how Jeff’s departure means Google is 'open-sourcing him for humanity' and bracing for machine learning to catch up. Meanwhile, CEO Sundar Pichai calls working with Jeff 'a privilege,' as Alphabet’s stock drops 6%, because apparently losing a legend is great for nothing but memes. Oh, and Demis Hassabis of DeepMind is shuffling deck chairs to Alphabet’s chief scientist, tactfully keeping the AI chaos spinning.