The AI rat race is more like a game of cat and mouse. Big companies are constantly chasing down and capturing bright minds that will push their AI forward. A good example has to deal with Google’s most recent major purchase. According to a report, Google paid $2.7 billion to get one of its best AI minds back.
The person in question is Noam Shazeer. He was one of the earliest employees of Google back in the year 2000. He became an influential force in Google’s development, but his tenure at the company ended just a few years ago. Back in 2021, he left the company. He left because Google didn’t want to release a chatbot that he developed.
Well, after leaving Google, he went and founded his own AI company. You might be familiar with Shazeer’s company, Character.ai.
Google paid $2.7 billion to get one of its top AI employees back
So, to clear up any confusion, Google didn’t write a $2 billion check for Shazeer to pocket. Rather, the company paid this gross amount to basically acquire Character.ai without actually buying the company. The money went toward licensing Character.ai’s technology. Also, it went towards getting Shazeer and his team to work at Google.
This “not-acquisition” will basically function like an acquisition, letting Google use Character.ai’s technology as if it were its own. Nipping the company’s CEO is the icing on the cake. This way, Google can basically control the company without having to go through the legal process of an acquisition.
However, this doesn’t mean that this deal is immune from the FTC. Whether Google owns the company or not, there’s always the chance that the FTC or some other regulatory body will see this as a thinly veiled acquisition.
Could Google get away with this?
This is similar to something that Microsoft did with a company called Inflection AI. It didn’t buy the company per se, rather, it just hired the mass majority of its employees and paid it $650 million to license its technology. It’s not an acquisition on paper, but it is in spirit, and it was enough for the FTC to open a probe into the company.
Google is already in hot water with the DOJ suing it in a massive antitrust lawsuit (it’s THIRD antitrust lawsuit in a year, mind you). One of the reasons why it’s in the hot seat is because of its tendency to throw its money around to get its way. Should the company really be pulling sneaky moves like these at this point? Only time will tell.