{"id":6927,"date":"2026-04-03T15:38:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:38:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/6927\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T15:38:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:38:03","slug":"sergey-brin-says-leaving-google-before-gemini-was-a-big-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/6927\/","title":{"rendered":"Sergey Brin Says Leaving Google Before Gemini Was a ‘Big Mistake’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sergey Brin<\/a> tried retirement \u2014 and immediately regretted it.<\/p>\n

Speaking at Stanford University’s School of Engineering centennial celebration last week, the Google cofounder<\/a> said he stepped back from day-to-day work in December 2019, imagining he’d spend leisurely days and “sit in caf\u00e9s and study physics.”<\/p>\n

Then the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n

“That didn’t work because there were no more caf\u00e9s,” he joked.<\/p>\n

Worse, he said he felt himself “spiraling” and “kind of not being sharp” without the intellectual stimulation he’d always relied on.<\/p>\n

So as soon as Google began allowing a small number of employees back into its offices, he joined them \u2014 eventually diving into what became Gemini<\/a>, Google’s flagship AI model.<\/p>\n

“To be able to have that technical creative outlet, I think that’s very rewarding,” the 52-year-old said. “If I’d stayed retired, I think that would’ve been a big mistake.”<\/p>\n

Inside Brin’s AI rethink<\/p>\n

Brin also offered a candid assessment of Google’s AI trajectory.<\/p>\n

Despite publishing the 2017 “Transformer<\/a>” paper that underpins nearly every major AI model today, he said Google “underinvested” in the technology and was “too scared to bring it to people because chatbots say dumb things.”<\/p>\n

OpenAI<\/a>, he said, “ran with it, which, good for them.”<\/p>\n

Still, he said Google retained an edge through its long-standing investment in neural-network research, custom AI chips, and massive data center infrastructure.<\/p>\n

“Very few have that scale,” he said.<\/p>\n

Asked what students should study in an era when AI can code<\/a>, Brin warned against fleeing technical fields.<\/p>\n

“I wouldn’t switch to comparative literature because you think AI is good at coding,” he said. “The AI is probably even better at comparative literature.”<\/p>\n

He also shared what he sees as the biggest mistake founders make \u2014 one he admits he fell into with Google Glass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He rushed the product before it was affordable, polished, or even actually ready.<\/p>\n

“Everybody thinks they’re the next Steve Jobs,” he said. “I’ve definitely made that mistake.”<\/p>\n

Now deeply involved in Gemini, Brin said the pace of AI development keeps him energized.<\/p>\n

“It’s absolutely amazing just the rate of innovation,” he said. “If you skip the news for a month, you’re way behind.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sergey Brin tried retirement \u2014 and immediately regretted it. Speaking at Stanford University’s School of Engineering centennial celebration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[165],"tags":[594,6947,6948,6954,6951,6952,6953,5040,812,1787,6950,6949,6956,6955,614],"class_list":{"0":"post-6927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sergey-brin","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-big-mistake","10":"tag-cafes","11":"tag-candid-assessment","12":"tag-chatbot","13":"tag-custom-ai-chip","14":"tag-dumb-thing","15":"tag-gemini","16":"tag-google","17":"tag-literature","18":"tag-long-standing-investment","19":"tag-neural-network-research","20":"tag-paper","21":"tag-school","22":"tag-sergey-brin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116341525866113945","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}