Google lost two of its most important AI researchers within days and the market wiped out $250 billion to make the point

Noam Shazeer, Transformer co-author and Gemini co-lead, announced he was joining OpenAI on June 18, 2026. The following day, Nobel laureate John Jumper said he was leaving DeepMind after nine years for Anthropic. Alphabet lost roughly $250 billion in market cap on June 22, its worst session in over a year, as investors confronted what the back-to-back exits signal about Google's ability to hold its most consequential AI talent.