Sebastian Mallaby on Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and Europe’s AI future

About this episode

Sebastian Mallaby discusses Demis Hassabis and the future of AI in Europe, exploring DeepMind's journey and challenges.

Demis Hassabis, Co-Founder and CEO of Google DeepMind, refused to leave London, challenged Google on AI safety and helped lead DeepMind back into the AI race. Sebastian Mallaby , author of The Infinity Machine and The Power Law , joins Andreas Munk Holm to discuss the founder psychology of Demis, the story behind DeepMind and why Europe may be entering a new era in technology. The conversation explores DeepMind’s fundraising journey, the Google acquisition, the merger with Google Brain, AI safety, sovereign technology and why Demis remains sceptical of parts of Silicon Valley culture despite operating at the centre of it. Timestamps (00:00) Why Demis Hassabis matters (01:12) Why DeepMind could not raise from European VCs (07:35) The Peter Thiel chess story (11:00) What DeepMind reveals about European venture (14:42) Why Europe’s tech ecosystem is accelerating (18:20) European sovereignty, defence tech and AI (21:20) DeepMind’s sale to Google and tensions over AI safety (29:40) The founder psychology of Demis (41:35) Google’s ChatGPT moment and Gemini’s comeback (45:05) Demis’ critique of Silicon Valley (50:45) Europe’s AI sovereignty problem (54:05) Final thoughts and Sebastian’s…

People in this episode

Host: Andreas Munk Holm

Guest: Sebastian Mallaby

Topics covered

• AI safety
• DeepMind
• European technology
• founder psychology
• Silicon Valley culture
• venture capital
• sovereign technology

Keywords

• DeepMind
• AI
• Sebastian Mallaby
• Demis Hassabis
• European venture capital
• technology
• Silicon Valley
• Google acquisition
• AI safety

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Google DeepMind, Google, Google Brain

Books & works: The Infinity Machine, The Power Law

Places: London, Europe

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