Google's Top Scientists Quit to Build AI Startup That Automates Scientific Discovery
Four top Google scientists have left their positions to launch a new AI startup called Discovery Loop. The team, led by Jeff Dean, Google's chief scientist and a 27-year veteran of the company, aims to automate scientific discovery itself.
Their goal is ambitious: propose an experiment, run it, evaluate the results, then repeat thousands of times over across fields like drug discovery, chip design, and material science. Google is backing them on the way out, taking a stake in the startup and providing cloud compute for its first year.
Dean didn't exactly hide his intentions to leave Google. Weeks before announcing the company, he described the exact concept to 6,000 aspiring founders at Y Combinator's Startup School, without mentioning it was already his own secret startup. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai tried to talk the group into staying, but ultimately gave the exit his blessing.