Denis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman both were London residents and now compete with each other by being in the rival companies in AI — one is at Google and the other at Microsoft.
Mustafa Suleyman is a Syrian immigrant — father a taxi driver and mother a nurse. At the age of 11, he was accepted as a student at Queen Elizabeth’s School. From one of the roughest areas of London, they moved to a safer locality in north.
Denis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman came to know each other as the younger brother of Denis was friend of Mustafa Suleyman. Those days, Denis was 20, and was a chess player and a video game designer. His parents ran a toy shop at London.
Dr.Hassabis, now 47, is the Chief Executive of Google DeepMind, devoted to AI. Suleyman is 39 now and has been appointed the Chief Executive of Microsoft AI.
They meandered from London to the Big Tech quite unusually. In 2010, they were both co-founders of DeepMind, a seminal AI research lab. Their paths diverged when Google acquired DeepMind in 2014 for $650 million.
ChatGPT from OpenAI arrived in 2022, and that kicked off an AI race. Dr. Hassabis was put in charge of AI research by Google. Mustafa Suleyman established another startup, Infection AI that struggled to gain traction. Unexpectedly, Microsoft hired him and most of his team.
Already, Google was rattled by Microsoft-backed OpenAI who introduced ChatGPT. Microsoft and Google are now rivals competing in the field of AI. Mustafa Suleyman is the head of Microsoft’s AI division.
Dr. Hassabis in an interview claimed that what Mustafa Suleyman has learnt about AI is a result of his association with DeepMind all these years.
Hassabis studied for a computer degree, and Suleyman studied philosophy and theology at Oxford. He dropped out to set up a help line for Muslim teenagers and working as a human rights officer for the mayor of London. Dr. Hassabis did PhD in neuroscience.
In 2010, they discussed how they could change the world.
Dr. Hassabis was on the verge of completing his post-doctoral work at the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit (a University College London lab) that combined neuroscience with AI. Dr. Hassabis was a hard-working young man, and he invited Suleyman to build a startup. Shane Legg too joined. He was an AI researcher. All three met at an Italian restaurant and believed that AI could change the world.
They obtained funding from Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist from Silicon Valley and set up DeepMind by the end of 2010. Its stated mission was to develop AGI.
Dr. Hassabis and Dr. Legg pursued intelligent machines. Suleyman’s task was to build products. As competition became fierce, and manpower was being poached, they decided to sell the DeepMind to Google.
Mustafa Suleyman’s leadership style was aggressive. He was placed on leave (2019). He too needed a break after hectic work for 10 years. He moved to Googles Cailfornia office but was not happy. He left to set up Inflection AI. He remained independent for some time. In March, 2024, Inflection AI vanished into Microsoft with Suleyman put in charge of a new Microsoft AI business.
Suleyman now shuffles his time between Silicon Valley and London and is an official rival to DeepMind.
Suleyman and Hassabis still text to each other and may meet over a dinner. Dr. Hassabis says that he is not much worried about any rivals.