{"id":134832,"date":"2026-08-10T11:02:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/134832\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T11:02:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T11:02:24","slug":"deepminds-demis-hassabis-was-everywhere-except-the-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/134832\/","title":{"rendered":"DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis was everywhere\u2014except the office"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u27a1\ufe0f Did someone forward you this email? If you would like to receive this information directly, every morning before the markets open in New York, sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ONE BIG THINGAt Google\u2019s DeepMind, absence did not make the heart grow fonder<\/p>\n

There\u2019s an extraordinary quote in Bea Nolan\u2019s account for Fortune<\/a> of how Demis Hassabis lost his role as CEO of DeepMind, the London-based lab that created Google\u2019s Gemini AI product. Apparently, Hassabis was largely absent from company offices: \u201cI can\u2019t say that I\u2019ve ever seen Demis walk around the office in the Gemini area,\u201d one DeepMind engineer said. (To be fair, he made plenty of media appearances.)<\/p>\n

DeepMind had also seen a recent exodus of talent\u2014in June, Google lost Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer to OpenAI and Nobel laureate and AlphaFold co-inventor John Jumper to Anthropic. And the product had fallen behind its competitors in terms of capabilities. So it is perhaps not surprising that parent company Alphabet, based 6,000 miles away in Mountain View, California, wants more direct control. Hassabis, who will now become the company\u2019s chairman, will be replaced by DeepMind\u2019s chief technology officer, Koray Kavukcuoglu, who is based in Mountain View and will report directly to CEO Sundar Pichai at Alphabet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

THE MARKETSThe price of oil ticks up again<\/p>\n

S&P 500 futures were up 0.14% this morning. The index closed up 0.62% in its last session.\u00a0
\nIn Europe, the Stoxx 600 was down 0.02% in early trading and the U.K.\u2019s FTSE 100 was down 0.3% before lunch.
\nAsia: South Korea\u2019s KOSPI was up 0.65%. Japan\u2019s Nikkei 225 was up 2.08%. India\u2019s Nifty 50 was down 0.05%. China\u2019s CSI 300 was up 0.16%.\u00a0
\nBrent crude was back over $84 per barrel this morning.
\nBitcoin was at $65.1K.<\/p>\n

\u2018Sell America\u2019 never happened\u2014at least in stocks<\/p>\n

As this chart from Wells Fargo\u2019s Ohsung Kwon shows, foreigners never really stopped buying U.S. equities:<\/p>\n

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MORE FROM FORTUNE<\/p>\n

Forget DeepSeek. China\u2019s real \u2018Sputnik moment\u2019 is happening on campus as American universities lose their advantage<\/a> – Mia Osmonbekov<\/p>\n

By propping up the yen, the U.S. and Japan are actually admitting dollar dominance isn\u2019t what it used to be, top economist warns<\/a> – Jason Ma<\/p>\n

Trump is betting that the U.S. naval blockade choking Iran\u2019s economy can achieve what bombs and missiles couldn\u2019t as more oil sneaks out of the Gulf<\/a> – Jason Ma<\/p>\n

\u2018Millennials are not punk kids anymore\u2019 \u2014 Ocasio-Cortez sees a \u2018generational tidal wave\u2019 driven by anger over economic futures sidelined by boomers<\/a> – Jason Ma<\/p>\n

Mysterious drone flights continue plaguing Europe after an explosive-laden drone was found at a German airport used to support Ukraine<\/a> – The AP<\/p>\n

Corcoran Group CEO says Gen Z\u2019s housing market struggles mirror what boomers faced 30 years ago: \u2018Stop buying Starbucks coffee,\u2019 she advises<\/a> – Orianna Rosa Royle<\/p>\n

AIOpenAI\u2019s revenues are plateauing, Bank of America says<\/p>\n

ChatGPT\u2019s monthly revenue from Apple\u2019s App Store has flattened over time, according to this Sensor Tower data published by Bank of America\u2019s Wamsi Mohan. It hit $265 million per month in July:<\/p>\n

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By amazing coincidence, app store revenue for Anthropic\u2019s Claude went through the roof this year, as this next chart shows. (Ignore the flatline for Google\u2019s Gemini\u2014that\u2019s likely an artifact of Google pulling its billing mechanism in-house so it doesn\u2019t have to pay fees to Apple.)<\/p>\n

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CHART OF THE DAYEveryone is profiting off AI except the people who make AI<\/p>\n

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\u201cIs AI a bubble?\u201d This is the best, simplest explanation we\u2019ve seen so far. It comes from Torsten Sl\u00f8k of Apollo Global Management. He broke out the various sectors of AI into four buckets: the models themselves (OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.) and then their non-AI suppliers of things like cloud services, chips, and energy. Lo and behold, everyone in the sector whose primary business is not building an AI model is profitable. Only the model-makers are money losers\u2014which implies that they are running on investment capital, not their own revenues. \u201cWill the ROI show up for AI’s end customers fast enough to sustain the spending that is generating those upstream margins?\u201d Sl\u00f8k asks.<\/p>\n

IRANIran and the U.S. test who can bear most pain over the closure of the Strait of Hormuz<\/p>\n

The war between Iran and the U.S. appears to have entered a stalemate as Iran refuses to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the U.S. watches Iran\u2019s economy crumble.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We are low-keying it,” President Trump said to Axios over the weekend<\/a>. “We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.” Centcom said it had turned away 55 ships<\/a> that attempted to sail to Iranian ports in recent days.<\/p>\n

Iran appears to be willing to see how much political damage it can inflict on Trump by keeping oil prices high and continuing a war that is unpopular with voters. In turn, the U.S. appears to be content to see if a break in hostilities will focus Tehran\u2019s attention on its precarious economic position.<\/p>\n

Iran on Saturday published a list of demands<\/a> including a complete end to hostilities, the removal of U.S. forces from the Strait, and the lifting of sanctions and the payment of war reparations.<\/p>\n

Those demands are similar to what Trump had previously agreed to in the \u201cmemorandum of understanding\u201d back in June, with the exception of reparations, the NYT notes<\/a>. But Trump is unlikely to agree to any pact that leaves Iran with even partial control of the Strait.\u00a0<\/p>\n

JOBS, AND THE LACK THEREOFU.S. unemployment would be 5% if it weren\u2019t for ghost workers leaving the market<\/p>\n

As you no doubt know by now, the U.S. reported a decline of 23,000 jobs in July<\/a>\u2014a depressingly weak report. Counterintuitively, unemployment went down, to 4.1% from 4.2%.<\/p>\n

Government jobs were cut by 53,000 as schools and other services shut for the summer. But the numbers also revealed that unemployment only declined because many unemployed workers simply gave up trying to find a job, or retired.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The best explanation of this new, bad trend came from James Knightley at ING. \u201cWe have to look at the participation rate. It fell to 61.4%, which, outside the pandemic, we must go all the way back to the mid to late 1970s to find a lower reading. A quarter of a million people left the labour force last month. Within that, the number of people classifying themselves as employed fell 87k while the number of people classifying themselves as unemployed fell 178k. Therefore, the fall in the unemployment rate was caused by disengagement rather than for any positive reason,\u201d he told clients.<\/p>\n

If the participation rate had held steady, \u201cwe would have a U.S. unemployment rate in excess of 5%,\u201d he wrote. These charts show the trend:<\/p>\n

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Young people aren\u2019t working<\/p>\n

It\u2019s young people who are losing out on the jobs, according to Bill Adams, chief U.S. economist at Fifth Third Commercial Bank. \u201cUnemployment among workers aged 20-24 without prior work experience, a good proxy for the Class of 2026, was 242,000, down slightly from 253,000 in July of 2025. The last two years have seen the highest unemployment for recent grads since 2016,\u201d he said in an email.<\/p>\n

This chart from Pantheon Macroeconomics shows how employment among younger people is dropping off a statistical cliff:<\/p>\n

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Did the Fed\u2019s Warsh just get his credibility back?<\/p>\n

Some analysts on Wall Street have been mean about new Fed chairman Kevin Warsh recently, saying he lacks \u201ccredibility\u201d because he won\u2019t give forward guidance and he hasn\u2019t raised interest rates even though inflation has been above 2% for five years. But the weak jobs number shows that raising interest rates at the last FOMC meeting would have been the wrong call, given that the labor market needs all the cheap money it can get.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe loss of 23,000 jobs is another reason the Fed was right to hold off on raising rates in July,\u201d said Jamie Cox, a managing partner\u00a0at Harris Financial Group.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Charlie Ripley, a senior investment strategist at Allianz Investment Management, agreed: \u201cIf anything, it raises the bar for any Fed rate increases heading into the fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. will report a new consumer price inflation (CPI) number on Wednesday\u2014the nightmare scenario for the Fed is if inflation is up while the job market is down. That would make its next interest rate decision an impossible call.<\/p>\n

NUMBER OF THE DAY: AI\u2019s contribution to GDP growth0.2 percentage points<\/p>\n

The contribution to GDP growth of the AI industry, as calculated by Pantheon Macroeconomics\u2019 Samuel Tombs and Oliver Allen. That\u2019s surprisingly small. Why? \u201cThe sums pouring into AI infrastructure are enormous, and a na\u00efve reading of the national accounts implies that this capex wave now is the source of about half of overall GDP growth,\u201d they said in a recent note. However, \u201cmost AI equipment is imported,\u201d meaning U.S. dollars leaving the country\u2014and that is counted as negative for GDP. \u201cSpending on AI hardware\u2014semiconductors, computers, and telecoms equipment\u2014subtracted 0.8pp from year-over-year GDP growth in Q2,\u201d they say.<\/p>\n

THE FRONT PAGES TODAY<\/p>\n

Donald Trump is dismantling US guardrails, warn former security officials<\/a> – FT<\/p>\n

Abel puts a big chunk of Berkshire\u2019s cash to work<\/a> – CNBC<\/p>\n

Private Credit Is Under Growing Strain, Despite Industry\u2019s Upbeat Tone<\/a> – WSJ<\/p>\n

Behind Bessent Moves, Wall Street Sees Sign of Bond-Market Angst<\/a> – Bloomberg<\/p>\n

MacKenzie Scott Steps Back Into Spotlight With New Book<\/a> – NYT<\/p>\n

ONE MORE THINGPresident Trump is obsessed with grass<\/p>\n

All told, Trump mentioned grass\u2014its quality, whether it should be paved over or not\u2014in at least 45 public events or interviews over the past 18 months, The AP reported<\/a>. That\u2019s once every 12 days. And that doesn\u2019t include the numerous social media posts that Trump has also made on the topic.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s already far outpaced the 26 times he mentioned grass during the entirety of his first four-year term.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not all. Trump recently hosted Matt Koch, the lawns research fellow for Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, in the Oval Office to discuss planting new grass on the White House\u2019s South Lawn. \u201cAn amazing dialogue, talking grass for half an hour,\u201d Koch said. \u201cGoing back and forth about grass.\u201d<\/p>\n

The White House declined to comment. But Trump has made clear where his interest in\u2014and knowledge of\u2014grass comes from. \u201cI know a lot about grass because I own a lot of golf courses,\u201d he said while announcing the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors last August. \u201cAnd, if you don\u2019t have good grass, you\u2019re not in business very long.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u27a1\ufe0f Did someone forward you this email? If you would like to receive this information directly, every morning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1984,58594,2408,132,1430,369,286,66],"class_list":["post-134832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-google","tag-economics","tag-fortune-500-digest-weekday","tag-gemini","tag-google","tag-google-gemini","tag-iran","tag-markets","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}