Google AI Talent Exodus: Jeff Dean, Sanjay Ghemawat, Oriol Vinyals, Quoc Le Leave to Start Discovery Loop; Demis Hassabis Also Sought Exit

Four legendary Google engineers left on the same day to start Discovery Loop, a company focused on automating ML research. NEW: Demis Hassabis also reportedly sought exit from Google DeepMind but was blocked alongside Jeff Dean over share price fears. He now shifts to Chair/Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind. Google's cloud boom (82% growth) creates internal compute tension. This is a massive signal for AGI timelines and the builder landscape. NEW: Vinod Khosla has funded Discovery Loop, confirming the new lab's backing and providing market context.