Google Gemini co-lead leaves for OpenAI less than 2 years after billion-dollar rehire

Noam Shazeer, Google’s Gemini co-lead and self-described inventor of the LLM revolution, is leaving for OpenAI less than two years after Google paid a reported $2.7 billion to rehire him from Character. AI. The vice president of engineering called it a “difficult decision to move on.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who pursued Shazeer for a decade, hailed the hire as “worth the wait” as the AI talent war intensifies.