How Pichai killed DeepMind’s independence, and changed how Hassabis thinks about AI safety

Demis Hassabis spent over two years negotiating a semi-independent governance structure for DeepMind inside Alphabet—complete with a $1 billion walk-away plan and a proposed 3-3-3 oversight board. Sundar Pichai shut it down, arguing AI was too central to Google’s core business to be spun out. The failed experiment eventually changed how Hassabis thinks about AI safety altogether.