Person
Noam Shazeer
Lately: OpenAI as Researcher, from Google.
Recorded moves, newest first
Noam Shazeer to OpenAI as Researcher
A repeat departure that a nine-figure retention deal failed to prevent signals compensation alone cannot secure loyalty at the frontier-research tier.
Noam Shazeer to Google DeepMind as AI Leader, Google DeepMind
Google's first use of the license-and-hire structure, reclaiming talent it had let walk away three years earlier.
In the archive
Hiring & Talent
The Biggest AI Hires of 2025
Meta's $14.3 billion Scale AI deal, OpenAI's C-suite rebuild, and Google's Windsurf license turned 2024 and 2025 into a two-year auction for AI's rarest asset: the researchers themselves.
Hiring & Talent
The Biggest AI Hires of 2026 (So Far)
Fidji Simo gave up her post as OpenAI's second-in-command to illness, Jeff Dean left Google with three senior colleagues to found a rival, and John Ternus took over at Apple, redrawing AI's leadership in 2026.
Hiring & Talent
OpenAI's Org Chart in Motion
Fidji Simo's July 2026 exit, Kevin Weil's departure from OpenAI for Science, and Noam Shazeer's arrival from Google trace a company shedding experiments to concentrate on enterprise AI and frontier research.
Hiring & Talent
Google DeepMind's Retention Playbook
A $2.4 billion Windsurf acquihire, Koray Kavukcuoglu's promotion and Demis Hassabis's step-back from chief executive trace how Google answered an exodus that sent Jeff Dean and Noam Shazeer toward rivals.
Hiring & Talent
The Compensation Revolution
Meta's nine-figure packages and a run of license-and-hire deals worth billions, from Microsoft's Inflection buyout to Google's Windsurf pickup, show incumbents paying for entire research teams while structuring around the merger review a straight acquisition would trigger.
Frontier Models
GPT-5 and the Cadence Behind It
OpenAI shipped GPT-5 and an open-weight sibling two days apart, then kept a numbered cadence running through 2026 while Jakub Pachocki, Mark Chen, Jerry Tworek and new arrival Noam Shazeer redrew the research org underneath it.
Hiring & Talent
DeepMind's Founding Generation Leaves to Build Rivals
Nine senior Google DeepMind and Google Brain scientists left in 2026 to found or join four separate rivals, and Google says its bench stays deep.