Alphabet shares slid after The Wall Street Journal reported that Jeff Dean, one of Google's earliest employees and a key figure in its AI strategy (co-founder of Google Brain), is departing after nearly three decades to launch his own AI company. The exit raises fresh concerns about Google's ability to retain top researchers as competition for AI experts intensifies.
Dean was Google's 30th employee in 1999 and will serve as CEO of Discovery Loop, a public-benefit corporation initially targeting machine-learning research and engineering. The startup will then transition to hardware design, drug discovery, and clean energy by automating multistep scientific experiments.
WSJ spoke with Dean:
"The four of us have been chatting about this a little bit and we got excited," Dean said in an interview at his Palo Alto, Calif., home Tuesday.
"We think by automating many of the classical experimental-loop aspects with machine learning models, augmenting human scientists and engineers, we'll be able to make it possible to explore more space in broad science areas to accelerate discovery."
The scientific process, he said, is about coming up with an idea for an experiment, setting up and running the experiment and then evaluating the results.
"Particularly in a lot of domains, you can fully computerize that whole loop," he said -- the inspiration for the startup's name.
Alphabet will invest in Dean's startup and provide cloud and computing capacity, while Radical Ventures and Khosla Ventures are co-leading a seed round. The valuation wasn't disclosed.
WSJ said that prominent Google researchers Oriol Vinyals, Quoc Le and Sanjay Ghemawat will be joining Dean in the new startup.
Shares of Alphabet dropped 5% after the report hit:
Four minutes after the WSJ report hit, Demis Hassabis, the head of Google DeepMind, wrote on X:
I've been working towards AGI my whole life, and as we enter this pivotal moment, I'm stepping into a new role as Chair of Google DeepMind & Chief Scientist of Alphabet. This will allow me to focus on long-term strategy, and accelerating scientific breakthroughs, including leaning into my work at Isomorphic to help cure disease.
I’ve been working towards AGI my whole life, and as we enter this pivotal moment, I’m stepping into a new role as Chair of Google DeepMind & Chief Scientist of Alphabet. This will allow me to focus on long-term strategy, and accelerating scientific breakthroughs, including…
— Demis Hassabis (@demishassabis) August 5, 2026Google CEO Sundar Pichai commented on the departures, saying Dean and Ghemawat helped engineer some of the company's most significant technology transitions over nearly three decades at the company and wished them the best.
Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 12:45Update(1235ET): The Houthis have apparently attacked two vessels off Yemen's coast within a mere few hours on Tuesday, as clearly the assault on international shipping by the Iran-aligned group has grown.
The below alert from the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre is the second one today. Just hours before, an initial vessel had been reported sunk, the crew rescued... and now this:
The incident took place 95 nautical miles (176km) south-east of Aden, Yemen, according to UKMTO, adding that all the vessel’s crew are “accounted for and safe”.
UKMTO WARNING 106-26
Click here to view the full warning⤵️https://t.co/iEt5aG0Mru#MaritimeSecurity #MarSec pic.twitter.com/6QeQIOu6qd
And just the day prior: "The Indian Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday condemned the attack on the India-flagged commercial vessel, MSV Faize Noore Oliya, which sank in the Red Sea, off the coast of Yemen on August 4, 2026."
This comes as the Saudis are desperately trying to put together a 'coalition of the willing' to defend against such attacks. While the Houthis have not declared Bab al-Mandab Strait closed to 'all' shipping, they have declared a 'siege for siege' blockade against Saudi shipping.
* * *
The Houthis have quickly made good on their earlier threat, with the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) Centre having reported the following fresh attack off Yemen:
The stricken vessel's crew has reportedly been rescued, after the fire on board and subsequent sinking.
Oil prices remain elevated also as over in the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians insist that the Omani deal to reopen the strait has "nothing to do with the United States."
earlier
Brent crude bounced off the $78-a-barrel level early Wednesday after Iran-backed Houthi militants threatened to attack Saudi oil tankers in the northern Red Sea, reviving fears that the regional conflict could spread to another critical shipping channel. The move came despite an overnight Axios report, citing two sources and a US official, that President Trump's negotiators and Tehran are nearing an Oman-brokered interim peace deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
The Bloomberg report cites Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree, who said the threat is retaliation for Saudi Arabia diverting oil tankers away from the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint in the southern Red Sea.
Brent crude bounced from the $78 level to $80, clawing back some of its losses after tumbling from $86 to $78 on news that the US and Iran were closing in on an interim deal to reopen Hormuz.
WTI topped $76 this morning before fading modestly...
The latest shipping data from the Hormuz chokepoint show that transits through the critical waterway remain well below the levels seen during the first interim peace deal, which eventually fell apart one month later and resulted in the recent tit-for-tat strikes.
Last night, President Trump told reporters, "They had an all-day negotiation. The Strait of Hormuz is going to be open very soon," adding, "If they back out again, they are going to get hit really hard."
Trump has repeatedly threatened massive strikes if Tehran fails to reach a deal, only to later signal progress in negotiations.
Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 12:35According to a growing casualty count, a large barrage of ballistic missiles fired by Russia on Ukraine has killed at least 21 people and wounded dozens more.
The overnight attack has raised the alarm for Ukraine's Western backers, given it is being widely reported that among the over two dozen ballistic and anti-ship missiles fired, not a single one was intercepted by Ukraine.
Huge overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital, via XThe attacks come on the heels of a record month: July saw over 380 missiles of all types launched on Ukraine, with government authorities citing the highest civilian casualties since 2022, with at least 377 civilians killed, and another 2,129 wounded for the month of July.
As Ukraine grapples with very low and limited missile interceptors, and amid reports that the Pentagon too is struggling to keep up supplies amid the Iran war, CNN also confirms that "as Russia fired more than two dozen ballistic and anti-ship missiles" and that "none" were intercepted by Ukrainian defenses.
President Zelensky again took to social media to urge partners to rapidly send more anti-air missiles: "It is crucial that our partners realize that delays in their delivery or a reluctance to provide anti-ballistic systems lead precisely to such horrific casualties and destruction," he said.
"Partners who are not ready to help more actively with the supply of interceptors right now can help by imposing new sanctions," he added.
Notably the Russian strikes have expanded to not just city infrastructure, energy cites, military bases, and ports - but now Russia appears to be going after prominent businesses.
This comes after Ukraine's repeat attacks on Wildberries facilities, the Russian online retailer giant comparable to Amazon:
The strikes also caused damage to prominent businesses in Ukraine, including the country’s largest e-commerce platform, Rozetka, and Epicentr, a retail chain comparable to IKEA.
In a statement, Epicentr said Russia launched a "devastating attack" on its manufacturing infrastructure, killing one of its male employees. “In a matter of minutes, Russian missiles destroyed what the company had been building for decades,” the statement said.
FOZZY group, which is one of Ukraine’s largest retailers that operates supermarket chains, said Russian shelling caused fires at two of its distribution centers. It said that six of its employees had been killed, while more have been injured.
Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv.
At least 20 Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles, 5 Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, and 2 Kn-23 ballistic missiles were launched from Bryansk, Kursk, Voronezh, and Rostov Oblasts.
Every single missile impacted. Not a single Patriot… pic.twitter.com/vXUKsehk4s
But on the flip side Ukraine has only expanded its own long-range drone attacks on Russian territory, including on the capital city.
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has explained to TASS that "In recent months, the number of drones launched toward Moscow has increased significantly. And overall, of all the attacks carried out almost daily against Russian territory, two-thirds of the drones are heading toward Moscow."
Last month Zelensky had announced a 40-day "operation of influence" - describing a multi-pronged campaign of long-range drone strikes intent on forcing Moscow to halt the war and get to the negotiating table on terms favorable to Ukraine. The Russian military has all the while also been upping its response.
Tyler Durden Wed, 08/05/2026 - 12:10