With a Fortune of $237 Billion, Google Co-Founder Regrets Retirement

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - Sergey Brin, who possesses wealth of US$237 billion (Rp 4,000 T), regrets his decision to retire from Google, the company he founded. This regret is related to the rapidly developing AI after he left the search engine giant. Brin is known to have retired a month before the Covid-19 pandemic occurred. At that time, his plan was to study physics. However, as time went on, he felt directionless. At an event at Stanford University, Brin admitted to feeling directionless and that his mind was no longer sharp. Then, he left his retirement and returned when Alphabet opened limited offices. He is known to have been involved in the development of the Gemini AI model. Since then, the 52-year-old man has become active again at Google for AI development. Brin also commented on Google’s AI investments. One of them is regarding the Transformer research in 2017. That technology is now used as the foundation for large language models of various companies. According to Brin, Google was not aggressive enough when releasing that research. Google’s cautious attitude also had a negative impact because it slowed down the launch of chatbots. On the other hand, competitors, such as OpenAI, moved more aggressively, which then triggered wider adoption of generative AI. However, he still praised Google’s long-term investments in neural network research, custom chips, and global-scale data centres. Only a few companies can operate the entire AI technology chain, he said. In addition, Brin touched on talent in the AI era. Students are encouraged to continue choosing technical fields and not to switch just because AI can write code. Programming, he said, still holds the highest value and is fundamental in AI development. “If you miss AI news for a month, you’ll be far behind,” he stated.