Demis Hassabis

Would I be happier looking back on building a multi-billion dollar company or helping solve intelligence?

It was an easy choice.

When we went on that walk together, I felt he would have taken his own offer.

The contrast with DeepMind's venture capital backers was obvious.

Demis had struggled to persuade Founders Fund that DeepMind would end up changing every widget in the world.

With Page, he didn't even have to make the argument.

I was fed up with scrambling around trying to justify what I knew was the biggest thing of all time, Demis recalled.

I just thought, look, I'll go to Google, I'll get a shitload of computers, and then I'll solve intelligence.

And so then Elon Musk hears about some negotiations between Demis and Google.

And so then he winds up calling Demis because he wants to buy DeepMind.

So Google doesn't get it.

Says when Elon found that Google was about to buy DeepMind, he said Demis shouldn't lose control of his company.

We can't have a giant corporation control AGI.

This is not a good thing for humanity.

And so then Elon calls Demis and says, how about if Tesla acquires you?

Demis pointed out that Tesla was not generating enough cash to support DeepMind's research.

Okay, how about if SpaceX acquires you?

Demis points out that SpaceX didn't have the computer power that DeepMind was going to need.

And so for the people that follow tech, all these characters keep popping up in the story.

You have Elon.