David Senra · Aug 23Sam Altman on Building OpenAI & Betting on the Impossible
In 2015 it was one of the only organizations chasing AGI, while thousands of founders built photo sharing apps.
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Company · AI assistants
DeepMind
An AI research lab led by Demis Hassabis, now part of Google.
In short
DeepMind chased AGI in 2015 when few did, and Google bought it for $550 million in 2014 over a Facebook offer of up to $800 million, because Google matched Hassabis's mission. Its cooling work cut data center energy use 40% by 2016. Lesson: back non-consensus bets, win talent on mission over price, and wrap strong models in a fun, tuned format.
What was said about DeepMind
Building AI products2
- Wrap a powerful model in a surprising, fun format▶ 12:07Audio Overviews drove NotebookLM's viral spread across social media.
Lenny's Podcast · Behind the product: NotebookLM | Raiza Martin (Senior Product Manager, AI @ Google Labs) - Pair the model with an opinionated content layer▶ 13:25Early attempts were not nearly as good as the shipped result, which came from heavy listening and tuning.Lenny's Podcast · Behind the product: NotebookLM | Raiza Martin (Senior Product Manager, AI @ Google Labs)
Founder principles1
Building the company1
Capital and deals1
David Senra · Aug 23
Acquired · Oct 5Google Part III: The AI Company. Google is amazingly well-positioned... will they win in AI?
Google bought DeepMind for $550 million in 2014 over a Facebook offer of up to $800 million, and let it stay in London with an oversight board. Its cooling work cut data center energy use 40% by 2016, and Pichai merged it with Brain in 2023.
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- Sundar Pichai merged Brain and DeepMind and put every Google product on one Gemini model▶ 2:43:52Gemini went to early public access in December 2023, six months after being announced, and Gemini 1.5 shipped a 1 million token context window by February 2024.
- Google bought DeepMind for $550 million by matching Demis Hassabis's mission, not price▶ 1:21:02The founders would have made about twice as much from Facebook. The data center cooling project cut energy use 40% by 2016.
Lenny's Podcast · Oct 10Behind the product: NotebookLM | Raiza Martin (Senior Product Manager, AI @ Google Labs)
It is the base model for Audio Overviews, with an audio model layered on top. New Gemini releases acted as upgrades to NotebookLM's source-grounded chat.
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