Google's 30th employee Jeff Dean shows what he returned on his last day after 27 years
Jeff Dean, a long-time Google executive and key figure in the company's AI development, has officially left the firm after 27 years. He is departing alongside other senior engineers to co-found a new public benefit corporation called Discovery Loop.
Why it matters
Dean's departure marks a significant shift in Google's AI leadership structure during a period of intense industry competition and internal reshuffling.
Jeff Dean's final act as a Google employee was a photograph. On Friday, the man who joined the company as employee number 30 in 1999 posted a picture of the two things he surrendered on his way out the door: a scuffed black Google laptop, and the plastic-sleeved badge with his face on it, still marked FTE. The caption ran to three words.The post has since crossed 2.8 million views, which tells you something about how closely the industry has been watching this particular exit. It comes days after Google announced a sweeping AI leadership reshuffle that moved Demis Hassabis out of the Google DeepMind CEO role and into a chair position, with CTO Koray Kavukcuoglu stepping up as SVP.
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