Google AI Legend Jeff Dean Departs to Launch Scientific Discovery Startup
Jeff Dean, one of Google's longest-serving and most influential executives, is leaving the company to launch a new AI startup called Discovery Loop. He is joined by several other top Google researchers, including Sanjay Ghemawat, Quoc Le, and Oriol Vinyals. Dean, who has been with Google since 1999 as its 30th employee, plans to serve as CEO of the new venture.
Discovery Loop is a public benefit corporation that aims to use advanced AI to dramatically accelerate scientific research. The startup plans to use high-powered algorithms to run thousands of experiments simultaneously, partially automating the research process and removing the bottleneck of slow, sequential human iteration. The company is also exploring recursive self-improvement, where AI helps create more powerful AI to further speed up discovery.
The startup has secured significant financial backing from multiple sources, including Google's parent company Alphabet. The initial funding round is co-led by Radical Ventures and Khosla Ventures, with additional participation from Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed, and Doerr Capital. The founding team states that the next great frontier for AI is moving beyond answering questions to actively making discoveries that deliver transformative technologies to the world faster.