Noam Shazeer Leaves Google for OpenAI

The co-inventor of the Transformer — the architecture underneath every major AI model — is leaving Google for OpenAI. Noam Shazeer co-authored “Attention Is All You Need” in 2017 and was co-leading Google’s Gemini. Google paid $2.7 billion to bring him back from Character.AI in 2024. Less than two years later, he’s gone.

OpenAI’s S-1 is filed. Polymarket gives 82% odds of a $1T valuation. The talent follows the capital.

Why this matters:

• Co-authored ‘Attention Is All You Need’ (2017) — the paper that launched modern AI
• Google made him co-lead of Gemini after paying $2.7B to bring him back from Character.AI
• OpenAI’s S-1 is filed at ~$1T. Joining pre-IPO = massive equity upside

The Framing Ladder: the talent follows the capital, the capital follows the mission.

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