This week, I take a look at the surprisingly strong state of Google, Meta gets a new chief AI researcher, and more. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out this week’s Decoder episode about deepfakes and where they are headed.
Also, do you use an AI coding tool like Cursor or GitHub Copilot? I’d love to know what works and what doesn’t…
“I think we are doing very well through this moment”
After spending time with Google executives during the company’s I/O conference in May, it was clear that they were feeling confident. Now, I’m beginning to see why.
ChatGPT is not making Google Search obsolete. If anything, AI is making Google stronger than before.
During Google’s earnings call this week, CEO Sundar Pichai announced that AI Overviews in search results “are now driving over 10-percent more queries globally for the types of queries that show them, and this growth continues to increase over time.” Put simply, when Google works like ChatGPT, people use it more. Pichai noted that this is particularly true for younger people, a demographic that the 10-blue-links version of Google had been losing relevance with for a long time.
ChatGPT doesn’t appear to be curbing the growth of the Gemini app, either. Pichai said that daily prompts to Gemini increased by over 50 percent from the previous quarter. Gemini now has more than 450 million monthly users, up from 350 million in March. Google processed nearly a quadrillion AI tokens across all its products last month, which is more than double the number it processed in May.
Another telling sign of confidence has been Google’s reaction to the AI talent wars. “I look at both our retention metrics as well as the new talent coming in, and both are healthy,” Pichai said on the earnings call. “I do know individual cases can make headlines. But when we look at numbers deeply, I think we are doing very well through this moment.”
While Mark Zuckerberg has managed to poach talented researchers from DeepMind, my sources say that Pichai and Demis Hassabis have been resistant to bidding wars and amenable to letting most people go. Contrast this with the mood at OpenAI, where research chief Mark Chen compared Meta’s poaching to the feeling of a home invasion.
There’s an industry-wide belief that DeepMind’s bench is deep enough to withstand defections and that the company can quickly make reverse acquihire moves, such as its recent Windsurf deal, as more AI startups seek refuge from the money-intensive game that only Big Tech seems capable of truly playing.
“Meta right now is not at the frontier,” Hassabis said in an interview with Lex Fridman this week. “Maybe they’ll manage to get back on there, and it’s probably rational what they’re doing from their perspective because they’re behind and they need to do something.” Implicit in that statement is the idea that Google is operating from a position of strength in the AI race, a notion with which all the major players I’ve spoken with privately agree.
Google is by no means unassailable. GPT-5 is coming soon and could blow past Gemini. ChatGPT is the Kleenex of chatbots, and that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. Meanwhile, Google is sending fewer clicks to websites, which threatens the give-and-take model that has fueled its business to this point. There’s a real chance that Google’s business may be broken up by the US government. At the very least, it will probably have to stop paying Apple for default status on the iPhone.
Even still, AI so far isn’t the threat to Google’s business that many thought it would be. Instead, it’s increasingly looking like Google is stronger than ever.
“This is the enigma of success in an industry that has no franchise value.”
– Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a public memo to employees acknowledging recent layoffs and the company’s climbing stock price.
“Unfortunately, I think ‘No bad person should ever benefit from our success’ is a pretty difficult principle to run a business on.”
– Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in a leaked message to employees about seeking funding from the Middle East.
“If we can make intelligence accessible everywhere, affordable to everyone, and easy to understand, we can drive the biggest opportunity engine the world has ever seen and help more people live better lives.”
– Incoming OpenAI exec Fidji Simo subtly laying the groundwork for ads in ChatGPT.
“I’ve created more billionaires on my management team than any CEO in the world. They’re doing just fine.”
– Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on the All-In podcast.
“I was given an offer that would explode [the] same day.”
– Windsurf’s second hire, Prem Qu Nair, on X, describing the way Google hired away the startup’s core engineering team.
Some interesting career moves this week:
- Mark Zuckerberg has found a chief AI scientist for his new Superintelligence AI lab: Shengjia Zhao, who co-created ChatGPT and GPT-4 at OpenAI. He’ll report to Alexandr Wang.
- Over at Microsoft, AI chief Mustafa Suleyman landed several recruits from Google DeepMind (his former employer), including the VP of engineering for Gemini, Amar Subramanya. Meanwhile, Jacob Andreou, a former Snap exec, is leading product and growth for Suleyman’s org.
- Speaking of Snap: Its SVP of revenue products, Darshan Kantak, is leaving just ahead of earnings, which is usually not a good sign.
- Anthropic CPO Mike Krieger and Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn are joining the board of Figma just ahead of its IPO.
- Instacart CPO Daniel Danker is joining Walmart as “head of global AI acceleration,” reporting to CEO Doug McMillon.
- Tom Conrad is officially the permanent CEO of Sonos. Fix the app, Tom!
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Let me know if you have thoughts on this issue or a good story about the AI talent wars. You can respond here or ping me securely on Signal.
