/Tech3h ago

Noam Shazeer's departure from Google raises doubts about Gemini Pro's future as OpenAI recruits pre-training talent

Story Overview

Noam Shazeer’s exit from his Gemini co-lead role at Google lands at a moment when OpenAI is actively courting London-based pre-training talent, prompting quick speculation that the Pro model’s next leaps may slow without one of its central architects who had only recently rejoined via a reported multibillion-dollar package.

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Original post

Samuel L Smith@SamuelMLSmith#1498inTech

Excited to wake up to a meeting invite from Noam!

Reminder: OpenAI is also hiring top pre-training researchers in London.

Come work with me @SavinovNikolay and the team on architecture, long-context, science of scaling, and more!

Contact london-training-hiring@openai.com

Noam Shazeer@NoamShazeer

I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there.

It was a difficult decision to move on. I’m incredibly proud of the amazing team at Google and everything we’ve built together. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with all of you.

2:28 AM · Jun 19, 2026 · 17.4K Views

Talent Shift

OpenAI’s London team keeps building

Public posts from OpenAI’s own Samuel L. Smith flag senior pre-training openings that stress architecture and long-context work, though exact assignments or start dates for Shazeer remain unconfirmed in available reporting.

Open Question

Gemini Pro’s next chapter stays unclear

Observers have voiced concern over the Pro variant’s development pace while noting stronger recent showings from Flash, yet Google has issued no public statements on succession or roadmap tweaks so the degree of impact stays an open variable.

Sentiment

Users are excited about Noam Shazeer's move to OpenAI because they admire the team's papers and want to see what they develop next.

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Bindu Reddy@bindureddy

Noam Shazeer leaving Google doesn’t bode well

Hopefully Gemini will continue to be a credible model family

Flash is a good model but Pro is still up in the air 🤷‍♀️

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Roman Vorushin@vorushin

@SamuelMLSmith @SavinovNikolay Do you hire in Zurich as well?

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Dhruv@dhruv2038

@SamuelMLSmith @SavinovNikolay You left gdm too - what’s up gdm lol

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Dhruv@dhruv2038

@SamuelMLSmith @SavinovNikolay Loved your papers - very interested what you guys are cooking up next.

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