In the beginning, they envision that these ideas would be developed with human codevelopment, but the goal is deep automation. They believe that, if it succeeds, a handful of dedicated people could use Discovery Loop in order to surpass the largest research organisations around. Discovery Loop will probably be a customer of these small teams. It is possible that the startup will also make their own loops for generating breakthroughs and to monetize them.
Then they put together a pitch deck to present to VCs to discuss funding for their public benefit corporation, which was set up by the company. “We just put a few slides with our backgrounds and a rough sketch of how we think our approach will be successful in a bunch of different ways,” Dean. They didn’t create it using AI. They were more impressive than any PowerPoint.
“With this team, I wouldn’t need to know what they were doing before I backed them,” Vinod Khosla was the venture capitalist that met with Google executives on Saturday in Sand Hill Road, to make sure no one could guess about Google’s imminent loss. “It’s the ultimate superstar team.” Khosla loved the idea as well. “Humans have been using AI to do research, not using AI to be a researcher,” “He says” “The fundamental thing [in Discovery Loop] is that AI is the researcher.”
Dean hosted other meetings at his house. Khosla Ventures, an AI-focused VC called Radical Ventures, and a few other firms bought into the company. (The founders aren’t sharing how much the funding was and at what valuation–but consider that some companies are paying tens or even hundreds of millions They are the GOATs. “Building something to solve all those problems is a powerful idea,” Jordan Jacobs will be joining the board of directors at Radical as managing partner. “These people have been doing this kind of work in the past so they know what they’re doing.”
The negotiations to leave Google were more difficult. Dean said that Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai had tried to persuade them over several meetings to keep their badges. Ultimately the team decided that they wanted the fun–and the freedom–of doing a startup.
“In a large organization there is always a lot of inertia you have to overcome to make any radical changes,” says Vinyals. “We want to build something different.” Google eventually gave its blessing to the engineers who left, as well as an investment and a deal for computing power during the first year.
“Over 27 years, Jeff and Sanjay helped to drive some of the most significant technology transitions, from our early search infrastructure to the neural networks that helped create the modern AI era,” Pichai stated in a press release. “We’ll continue to work with Discovery Loop as a founding investor and Cloud partner, and collaborate on a research framework for ML systems and related infrastructure advances.”
This mini-exodus is a big deal for Google. Dean and his founders are taking great pains to remain stealthy. They have not yet hired a team, which could mean more Googlers leaving. There is a pause when I ask the name of the CEO. “I think I’m the CEO,” Dean says, “Shadowily,” “Everyone pointed at me.”
Discovery Loop isn’t a new company. Just about every major figure in AI—Dario, Sam, Jensen—has claimed at one point or another that AI will become an engine of scientific discovery, solving problems that humans could never crack on their own. This team hopes that the knowledge and skill they have will help them build a breakthrough system. Discovery Loop must meet a more narrowly defined success criteria: Can the team’s work as a new startup make a difference as much as the talent hole they are creating by leaving Google.
