How Did DeepMind Find Its First Believers?

David Senra, reading Sebastian Mallaby, says DeepMind found its first believers by telling conference crowds it was starting an AGI company and talking only to the hardcore believers who stayed. Demis Hassabis stayed completely undeterred even though nobody believed in the future value of DeepMind stock.

Prestigious figures in the field assumed a research team with no revenues would do interesting science for a couple years and then go out of business. Scientific startups need blue sky thinkers who wander into the unknown. At conferences the team said it was starting an AGI company. 80% of the people rolled their eyes, turned around, and walked away. The team treated the walk-away as an efficient way to discover who was worth a real conversation.

The pitch to recruits set DeepMind against academia. Academia could be boringly cautious and terrifyingly competitive: boring because it pursued incremental advances, terrifying because scientists cut each other's throats to be the first to publish. DeepMind promised the thrilling pursuit of the big leap and the near absence of rivals, work with no competition because no one thinks it is possible.