Google chief scientist Jeff Dean, one of the company’s most respected engineers and executives, is leaving the search giant as part of a broader AI leadership shake-up at the search giant.
Naturally, employees have had something to say about his shock departure.
Googlers peppered the company’s central message board with memes and posts about Dean’s departure, according to several posts seen by Business Insider. Some of them riffed on “Jeff Dean Facts” — a running gag where staff post ridiculous and exaggerated “facts” about Dean’s mythical status.
“Google is not losing Jeff Dean. Google is finally open-sourcing him for humanity,” one of the memes read.
“Leaves Google so ML advances can catch up to Jeff Dean,” read another, referring to machine learning, a subfield of artificial intelligence.
Dean’s status both inside and outside Google is legendary. One of the company’s earliest employees, Dean wrote significant parts of Google’s search infrastructure and cofounded the Google Brain AI unit. He was also a technical co-lead on Google’s Gemini project.
Dean said on Wednesday that he was leaving to cofound his own AI startup along with three other top Google researchers, including Dean’s longtime collaborator Sanjay Ghemawat.
Google is taking a stake in the new venture, which is named Discovery Loop and will focus on automating machine learning with breakthroughs across domains from computer hardware to drug discovery.
As part of the leadership changes, Demis Hassabis is moving from CEO of Google DeepMind to become chief scientist at Alphabet. Hassabis will also become chair of DeepMind.
Dean had been at Google for 27 years, and some employees noted the significance of his exit. “Sad day for Google,” read one post that included pictures of Dean and Ghemawat. “Jeff and Sanjay’s decision deserves to be a separate email. Not a footnote of some reorg,” another employee wrote.
A Google spokesperson pointed Business Insider to the company’s blog announcing Dean’s departure, in which CEO Sundar Pichai said it had been “a privilege” to work alongside Dean.
Some employees joked about the company’s stock dropping by as much as 6% after the AI reshuffle announcement. One posted a meme of Christof from “The Truman Show” — the director of a fake world who gives his orders through a headset — with the caption: “Stock is finally back up again. Announce major engineer to leave Alphabet.”
Another employee made a coding joke on a picture of Dean’s face: “My parting gift: StockReduce.”
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