Google hit by new AI brain drain as Anthropic poaches top Gemini talent - Los Angeles Times
Splendid news from Mountain View: Google is losing two more senior Gemini researchers to Anthropic, because nothing says 'we dominate AI' quite like watching your top talent migrate to a company founded by your disgruntled ex-employees. Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel are the latest defectors, continuing a trend that suggests Google's AI lab is less a cutting-edge research hub and more a finishing school for Anthropic. The irony, of course, is that Anthropic was launched by former Googlers who decided they wanted to build AI 'responsibly'—which apparently involves dismantling their old employer's talent bench one poached researcher at a time.
Adler and Pritzel aren't exactly household names, but in the incestuous world of AI research, they're the sort of people who make a difference between a model that can reliably solve math problems and one that confidently recommends adding glue to pizza. Google's response—presumably a memo about 'retention initiatives' and 'strengthening our culture'—will not stem the bleeding, because the root cause is simple: Anthropic offers stock packages that Google's bureaucracy cannot match, and researchers get to work on something other than fighting internal battles over safety deployment. 'We remain committed to building the most capable and responsible AI,' a Google spokesperson will say, as another researcher updates their LinkedIn.
The broader picture is that Google's AI strategy increasingly resembles a hotel where the staff keep walking out the back door with the towels. Since 2023, the company has lost a staggering number of senior researchers to startups and rivals, yet continues to burn billions on compute and paper over the cracks with press releases. The question isn't whether Anthropic will leapfrog Gemini—it's whether Google will eventually just subcontract its AI research directly to Anthropic and call it a 'partnership.' At least then the talent migration would have a tidy name.