Demis Hassabis

Proteins are the building blocks of life.

They provide the structure and also the function of organs and muscles, hormones and hair, blood and brain cells.

The idea of solving protein folding or predicting the complex shapes that proteins assume was both fascinating in its own right and almost certain to unlock medical advances.

Knowing the structure of proteins would help researchers to come up with drug molecules that could bind to their surfaces.

Knowing how those structures formed might unlock cures for Parkinson's or Alzheimer's, since both diseases were thought to be linked to incorrectly folded proteins.

And when they wind up solving this, they make the technology and all their research free to the world.

And when DeepMind's project was completed, the company gifted its results to science, allowing researchers all over the world to make free use of its discovery.

And then one thing that Demis has in common with most of history's greatest entrepreneurs is like when you do something great, you don't sleep on the wind.

You don't rest on the laurels.

You just go and do something else.

It says when Demis solves something big, he doesn't pause to spend much time savoring the achievement.

And so Demis talks about the fact that he's unreasonable, that he's always pushing for more.

There's people inside the company actually talk about the fact that he's never satisfied.

They always wants more.

They have this great line, this great line about they call Demis driven development.

At DeepMind, we have something called Demis driven development.

If a review meeting with Demis has been scheduled for Tuesday, you were urged to complete the next round of upgrades by Monday.

No matter how many upgrades arrive, Demis wants more of them.

And so something that Demis would repeat way a decade, more than a decade before he actually had proof of this, is the fact that he really believed that AI could offer scientific miracles.

And he talks about the fact that belief comes before ability.