Google paid $2.7 billion in 2024 to bring Shazeer back, and it was as Google’s researcher that he put the odds at 50/50 that the next major breakthrough would be Gemini’s rather than a human’s. The corpus records the position ending when OpenAI poached him in June 2026.
Role
Noam Shazeer, AI researcher at Google
The Google position, held after the 2024 reacquisition, from which he put even odds on Gemini making the next breakthrough.
Sources
Attribution and reporting linked by this record; links do not imply independent verification.
- Welcome to December 19, 2025 (theinnermostloop.substack.com)
Cite or correct this record
Suggest a correction — opens a GitHub draft for you to review and submit.