Sorry but my eyes rolled to the back of my head with this one. This is between two teams with tons of smart contributors, but the difference is one is more flexible and able to take risks vs the other that has many times more researchers and the world's best and most mature infrastructure/tooling. Its not a CEO vs CEO battle

I think it requires a nuanced take but allow me to provide some counter-examples.

The first is CEO pay rates. Another is the highest paid public employees (which tend to be coaches at state schools). This is evidence that the market highly values managers.

Another is systemic failures within enterprises. When Boeing had a few very public plane crashes, a certain narrative suggested that the transition from highly capable engineer managers to financial focus managers contributed to the problem. A similar narrative has been used to explain the decline of Intel.

Consider the return of Steve Jobs to Apple. Or the turn around at Microsoft with Nadella.

All of these are complex cases that don't submit to an easy analysis. Success and failure are definitely multi-factor and rarely can be traced to a single definitive cause.

Perhaps another way to look at it would be: what percentage of the success of highly complex organizations can be attributed to management? To what degree can poor management decisions contribute to the failure of an otherwise capable organization?

How much you choose to weight those factors is entirely up to you.

edit: I was also thinking about the way we think about the advantage of exceptional generals/admirals in military analysis. Or the effect a president can have on the direction of a country.

Could you please expand, on both your points?

It is more gut feel than a rational or carefully reasoned argument.

I think Pichai has been an exceptional revenue maximizer but he lacks vision. I think he is probably capable of squeezing tremendous revenue out of AI once it has been achieved.

I like Hassabis in a "good vibe" way when I hear him speak. He reminds me of engineers that I have worked with personally and have gained my respect. He feels less like a product focused leader and more of a research focused leader (AlphaZero/AlphaFold) which I think will be critical to continue the advances necessary to push the envelope. I like his focus on games and his background in RL.

Google's war chest of Ad money gives Hassabis the flexibility to invest in non-revenue generating directions in a way that Altman is unlikely to be able to do. Altman made a decision to pivot the company towards product which led to the exodus of early research talent.

> Altman made a decision to pivot the company towards product which led to the exodus of early research talent.

Who was going to fund the research though?

Fair point, and a good reminder not to pass judgement on the actions of others. It is totally possible that Altman made his own prediction of the future and theorized that the only hope he had of competing with the existing big tech companies to realistically achieve an AI for the masses was to show investors a path to profitability.

I should also give Altman a bit more due in that I find his description of a world augmented by powerful AI to be more inspiring than any similar vision I've heard from Pichai.

But I'm not trying to guess their intentions, I am just stating the situation as I see it. And that situation is one where whatever forces have caused it, OpenAI is clearly investing very heavily in product (e.g. windsurf acquisition, even suggesting building a social network). And that shift in focus seems highly correlated with a loss of significant research talent (as well as a healthy dose of boardroom drama).

Note sure why their comment was downvoted. Google the names. Hassabis runs DeepMind at Google which makes Gemini and he's quite brilliant and has an unbelievable track record. Buffet investing in teams points out that there are smart people out there that think good leadership is a good predictor of future success.

It may not be relevant to everyone, but it is worth noting that his contribution to AlpaFold won Hassabis a Nobel prize in chemistry.

Zoogeny got downvoted? I did not do that. His comments deserved more details anyway (at the level of those kindly provided).

> Google the names

Was that a wink about the submission (a milestone from Google)? Read Zoogeny's delightful reply and see whether it can compare a search engine result (not to mention that I asked for Zoogeny's insight, not for trivia). And as a listener to Buffet and Munger, I can surely say that they rarely indulge in tautologies.

I wouldn't worry about downvotes, it isn't possible on HN to downvote direct replies to your message (unlike reddit), so you cannot be accused of downvoting me unless you did so using an alt.

Some people see tech like they see sports teams and they vote for their tribe without considering any other reason. I'm not shy stating my opinion even when it may invite these kinds of responses.

I do think it is important for people to "do their own research" and not take one man's opinion as fact. I recommend people watch a few videos of Hassabis, there are many, and judge his character and intelligence for themselves. They may find they don't vibe with him and genuinely prefer Altman.