"A Bit of Chaos": How Sergey Brin Is Building Gemini in Startup Style in a Kitchen at Google

About 30 years ago, tech giant Google was born in a garage. Today, its fate in the race for artificial intelligence is largely being decided in the office kitchen at the company’s California campus. It is there that Alphabet co-founder Sergey Brin oversees the development of the flagship AI model Gemini, striving to ensure Google doesn’t fall behind its competitors, according to Business Insider. What is known about this unusual “command center”?

The kitchen, where Brin and several other key Google executives work, is located on the second floor of Gradient Canopy—a tent-shaped structure next to the company’s headquarters. Like a typical office break room, the space is equipped with a refrigerator and a coffee machine, according to the publication, which spoke with eight former and current employees. What is unusual, however, are the desks arranged in a U-shape, at which the Google co-founder and his colleagues are effectively steering the company in its battle for leadership in the field of AI.

Brin disbanded this informal headquarters in 2023 when he returned to his day-to-day work at Google, according to Business Insider. Over time, the space—which employees call “Sergey’s micro-kitchen”—effectively became a hub of influence and a center for key decisions regarding Gemini’s development. At one point, the kitchen had to be expanded because more and more employees wanted to work closer to this hub.

"Sergey wants to run Gemini like a startup," said a former employee of the company. "If you want to be part of a startup, you have to work in the kitchenette."

Several times a week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai stops by Brin’s kitchen. Rumors are circulating among employees that the company’s other co-founder, Larry Page, has also been there, the publication reports. Over the past two years, the appeal of this place has only grown. Koraï Kavukçuoğlu now works alongside Brin; following recent reshuffles, he became senior vice president of Google DeepMind and oversees the development of Gemini and AI research. According to two BI sources, Emanuel Taropa—a Google researcher with “legendary” status in the AI research community—is a frequent visitor to the kitchen. Research engineer Enrique Piqueras, whom insiders describe as one of Brin’s closest associates, is also a regular there. Another frequent guest in the micro-kitchen is Rahul Arya, a physics Olympiad participant who played a key role in improving Google’s AI chips.

Brin does not hold a formal position at Google, but together with Page, he retains decisive influence over the board of directors thanks to a special class of stock. After both co-founders stepped back from the day-to-day management of Alphabet in 2019, Brin focused on other projects, such as building airships. He returned to active work following the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, stating that he couldn’t resist the temptation.

According to sources interviewed by the publication, Brin is primarily focused on the technical aspects of Gemini’s development—he participates in discussions about the size of the models, their release schedules, and possible approaches to creating artificial general intelligence (AGI). At times, Brin’s decisions have drawn criticism from employees—for example, his email stating that the “optimal level of productivity” should be a 60-hour workweek. One former Google manager told BI that he advised his team to ignore the co-founder’s message.

Earlier this year, when asked to describe his interactions with AI teams, Brin himself said that he often “pushes” employees if he is dissatisfied with the direction of their work. He described himself as someone who “can be a little destructive at times.”

"To be honest, I'm a bit of a troublemaker," he said.

Brin’s influence in the development of Gemini is growing, in part due to his ability to mobilize resources for critical tasks and overcome the tech giant’s internal bureaucracy, sources said. Even the Gemini team sometimes finds it difficult to obtain Google’s computing resources, including chips, and turning to Brin can resolve this issue.

“Koray has more formal influence within the hierarchy, but Sergey is the founder of Google,” a former employee told the publication. “He knows how to overcome bureaucratic obstacles and cut through red tape like no one else.”

Some Google employees consider these skills essential in the current situation. In 2023, Google merged its AI research labs, Google Brain and DeepMind, into a single division led by Hassabis; however, sources told the publication that the two teams’ corporate cultures proved to be too different. Generally, the Brain team collaborated more closely with Google on product improvements, while DeepMind’s projects were often long-term in nature and lacked short-term commercial viability. Disagreements over the development of Gemini led to a wave of layoffs and a slowdown in progress, BI reports. According to two of the publication’s sources, some executives at Google’s California office were dissatisfied with Hassabis and other researchers in London, believing that they weren’t taking a pragmatic enough approach to making Gemini more competitive.

In August, Google announced that DeepMind’s chief scientist, Jeff Dean, would be leaving, and that Hassabis would step down as the lab’s CEO to become its chairman and chief scientist at Alphabet. Most of Hassabis’s responsibilities were transferred to Kavukçuoğlu.

Sources within the company viewed this as a victory for the technical side and a further reduction in DeepMind’s independence, underscoring just how important the commercial aspect of the race for AI leadership is to Google. In recent weeks, Google has shown signs of progress. The company recently rehired Barrett Zoph, a co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, which, according to some sources, could be a major win for Google. The company also stated that its latest model, Gemini, is showing significant progress in code generation.

However, the AI-powered software market is rapidly filling up, and the release of ChatGPT’s Astra model appears to have once again pushed the boundaries of what’s possible. Google needs a major technological breakthrough that will allow its models to take the lead, according to DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria. “Otherwise, it will all come down to tactics, and they’ll have to constantly play catch-up,” he said.

Google declined to comment in response to a request from Business Insider. According to two of the publication’s sources, Brin has been spending less time in the kitchen at Gradient Canopy in recent months. Late last year, he purchased real estate in Florida and Nevada and moved some of his personal assets out of California ahead of the introduction of a new tax on billionaires.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor