Transformer inventor joins OpenAI
noam shazeer, inventor of the transformer architecture, joins openai. the move signals an aggressive talent grab against google ahead of openai's rumored ipo.
openai has hired noam shazeer, the co-inventor of the transformer architecture and a former google deepmind lead, alongside policy expert dean ball. ball will lead a new 'strategic futures' team focusing on catastrophic risk and government relations, reporting to cso jason kwon. shazeer's exit from google follows reported internal conflicts regarding his posts on social issues and comes after the $2.7 billion re-acquisition of character.ai. these dual hires target frontier model research and regulatory strategy amid intensifying competition with google and anthropic.