Why Demis Hassabis chose Google over Facebook despite bigger offer from Mark Zuckerberg

In the initial days of Google ‘s Deepmind artificial intelligence, Facebook had almost acquired the startup. Therefore, Demis Hassabis, the co-founder of DeepMind, had to choose between two tech giants which were Google and Facebook. Even though Facebook offered more money, he decided to go with Google in 2014 for around $650 million.

This choice for Demis Hassabis wasn’t about who paid more. Instead, it was about which company better matched his vision for the future of AI, as told by Demis Hassabis to a new Wall Street Journal excerpt from Sebastian Mallaby’s upcoming bookThe Infinity Machine