Transformer Co-Author Noam Shazeer Leaves Google for OpenAI, Two Years After a $2.7B Return

CNBC·high signal

Noam Shazeer — Transformer co-author and Google Gemini co-lead — announced June 18 he is leaving Google for OpenAI, just two years after Google paid ~$2.7B to bring him back from Character.AI, with Sam Altman saying he'd wanted to work with Shazeer 'since the very beginning of OpenAI.' This is a marquee signal of where frontier research talent and architectural direction are concentrating heading into OpenAI's expected Q4 2026 IPO. For builders, leadership churn at this level often precedes shifts in roadmap and model behavior on both platforms.