DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman surprised many of his followers last week when he announced he's leaving Google to become a venture capitalist.
His exit from Google, which acquired the DeepMind artificial intelligence lab in 2014, comes after he was accused of having an aggressive management style by former colleagues at DeepMind.
He added: "They're the kinds of people that I like to back and I think that's what we need. We need more people who are prepared to try and do bold things and tackle hard problems to try to improve our world."exclusive interview with TechCrunch "In the past, Mustafa had a truly admirable focus on genuinely trying to make the world a better place," they said. "In particular, whilst at DeepMind, he played an essential role in health care and climate change projects. So I'm surprised that Suleyman's main interests now seem to be around the metaverse and gaming. I hope he will also find time to focus on fixing some of the deep problems facing the world.
Two of Suleyman's other public investments include music ticketing app Dice and health-care app Babylon Health. Suleyman, who dropped out of his undergraduate philosophy degree at Oxford University to set up a Muslim helpline, led DeepMind's applied AI efforts for several years both pre and post acquisition.