Google Spends $2.7 Billion On One Employee Noam Shazeer

October 1, 2024

Google is reportedly spending big bucks to bring back an employee they once rejected.

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According to reports, the tech giant is paying $2.7 billion to Noam Shazeer, an important figure in artificial intelligence, who left the company in 2021 to start his own venture. The reason for his departure was Google refusing to launch a chatbot Meena that he developed alongside his colleague.

Shazeer and his colleague Daniel de Freitas made their former company regret the decision to let them go when they started Character.AI, which quickly became a big player in Sillicon Valley’s AI scene.

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Last year, their startup reached a valuation of $1 billion. Now, Google has brought the duo back by paying for the rights to use Character.AI’s technology, allowing them to skip the usual wait for regulatory approval.

Former CEO Eric Schmidt once called Shazeer a top innovator in 2015. He himself has shown great confidence in his work believing that if Google had gone ahead with Meena it would have replaced their search engine.

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Now back at the Alphabet company, Shazeer is leading the development of Gemini, aimed at competing with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. His leadership could be just what Google needs to stay strong in the fast-growing AI market.