Google had ChatGPT 3 years before ChatGPT existed.
Jan 2020: Shazeer (literally co-wrote the Transformer paper) builds a chatbot internally. Tells leadership it could replace search.
Google's response:
- Sat on it for 3 years because it threatened their search money printer
- Let Shazeer leave
- Paid $2.7B in 2024 to hire him back
- Handed the entire category to OpenAI and Anthropic (now worth $1.8T combined)
And they're doing it AGAIN right now—pouring resources into financing Anthropic and selling chip access instead of backing their own lab DeepMind. That's why everyone's leaving.
Classic innovator's dilemma. Protect the cash cow, lose the future.
Jan 2020: Shazeer (literally co-wrote the Transformer paper) builds a chatbot internally. Tells leadership it could replace search.
Google's response:
- Sat on it for 3 years because it threatened their search money printer
- Let Shazeer leave
- Paid $2.7B in 2024 to hire him back
- Handed the entire category to OpenAI and Anthropic (now worth $1.8T combined)
And they're doing it AGAIN right now—pouring resources into financing Anthropic and selling chip access instead of backing their own lab DeepMind. That's why everyone's leaving.
Classic innovator's dilemma. Protect the cash cow, lose the future.