Alphabet's stock plummeted following the announcement that a Nobel laureate was leaving the AI team
This is the second AI researcher to leave the company in less than a week
Alphabet's market capitalization has risen above $4 trillion, driven by investors' hopes for the company's leadership in the field of AI / Photo: Google
Shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, fell more than 7% during trading on Monday, June 22. This is the sharpest one-day drop since February, according to Bloomberg.
Investors began selling Alphabet shares following reports that John Jumper, vice president of Google DeepMind, was leaving the company. On June 19, he announced he was moving to Anthropic—the most valuable startup in the field of artificial intelligence and a competitor to Google. This marked Google’s second major loss in a week. On June 18, one of the company’s leading researchers, Noam Shazir, announced he was moving to OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT.
Jumper is the co-winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, alongside DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis. Jumper was a key member of Google’s team developing AI tools for writing code, according to Bloomberg. His departure will make it harder for Google to compete with Anthropic, OpenAI, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX in the AI space, the agency believes.
Google has struggled to sell these tools to businesses, the agency claims, citing former company employees. By comparison, it was the corporate sector that drove Anthropic’s rapid revenue growth.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor
