# Google DeepMind loses Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer (Transformer co-author) to OpenAI and Nobel laureate John Jumper (AlphaFold) to Anthropic within 48 hours, wiping ~$270B off Alphabet

_Wednesday, July 1, 2026 at 3:04 PM EDT · AI · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

![Google DeepMind loses Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer (Transformer co-author) to OpenAI and Nobel laureate John Jumper (AlphaFold) to Anthropic within 48 hours, wiping ~$270B off Alphabet — Primary](https://cdn.searchenginejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/015db4c3-3089-4f01-bfb3-b7baca0b470b-171.jpeg)

Two senior Google AI researchers are leaving the company for rival labs within the same week, according to Search Engine Journal. Noam Shazeer, a co-lead of the Gemini models and co-author of the "Attention Is All You Need" paper that introduced the Transformer architecture, announced on X on June 18 that he is heading to OpenAI. Google brought Shazeer back in 2024 through a deal with Character.AI reported at $2.7 billion and installed him as a co-lead on Gemini. He leaves less than two years later. John Jumper, who led the AlphaFold project at Google DeepMind and shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the protein-structure prediction system, is going to Anthropic after nearly nine years at the company. Both Google DeepMind and Anthropic confirmed Jumper's move. Alphabet shares fell about 5% to 6% on June 22, with market reports tying the decline to concerns about AI spending and Google's ability to retain senior AI talent. Bloomberg reported that DeepMind staff have raised concerns about the company lacking a clear product for businesses building AI coding tools, an area where Anthropic and OpenAI have gained ground.

## Sources

- [Search Engine Journal](https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-loses-two-top-ai-researchers-to-openai-anthropic/580201/)

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