After Top Ai Exits Google Parent Alphabet Stock Tumbles Amid Talent Retention Concerns

Days after co-lead of Gemini, Noam Shazeer exited Google to join OpenAI, another elite AI researcher has announced their departure from Google’s DeepMind. John Jumper, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024, along with Demis Hassabis and David Baker, announced that he is leaving for Anthropic after his nine-year stint with Google’s AlphaFold team.

After the exit of Shazeer and Jumper, Google parent Alphabet lost about $225 billion in market value on June 22, indicating how investor faith in Google’s AI talent has shaken. Google’s share price fell by about 7 per cent on Monday, which was also the first day since the exit of its top AI researchers, before closing down 5 per cent.

Jumper led the AlphaFold team that is known for building the AI model that could predict protein structure. On June 19, Jumper took to his X account to announce his exit. “After nearly 9 years, I have decided to leave Google DeepMind and join Anthropic (after taking some time to recharge). I am incredibly grateful for my time…” he wrote in his post. Jumper was serving as VP, engineering fellow at Google DeepMind.

The Nobel laureate said that Demis Hassabis, CEO of DeepMind, took a real change letting him lead the AlphaFold team just six months after finishing PhD. “The entire GDM team taught me so much about how to do great science. GDM is a special place, and I’ll still be excited to hear about what amazing things they discover next.”

According to a report in the Business Insider, Google spokesperson said that AI talent is a competitive space and that the tech giant continues to be confident in its ability to attract and retain people, including those from its rivals. While the dip in stock prices was not solely due to the two high-profile resignations, according to MarketWatch the June 22 fall was the company’s biggest one-day percentage decline in more than a year and its largest reported one-day market-cap loss.

Shazeer has been noted for his seminal work on the transformer architecture, while Jumper was instrumental in combining AI with scientific discovery.

While OpenAI and Anthropic may be making rapid strides, Google DeepMind remains one of the most advanced AI labs in the world. And, unlike OpenAI and Anthropic, Alphabet has more profitable businesses that can push years of infrastructure funding without relying on new capital rounds.