“Noam is one of the people I have most wanted to work with since the very beginning of OpenAI. Only took 10 years,” says OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on X.
OpenAI is hiring some of the world’s top IT leaders as the IPO-ready AI superstar hires AI guru and co-leader of Google Gemini, Noam Shazeer—the former CEO of Character.AI and one of Google’s first few hundred employees.
Shazeer is a longtime Google AI veteran who left Google in 2021 to lead Character.AI. In 2024, Google reportedly paid $2.7 billion to rehire Shazeer along with key members of his Character.AI team and its technology to help elevate Google Gemini.
“I’m incredibly proud of the amazing team at Google and everything we’ve built together,” said Shazeer on social media platform X Wednesday. “I’m excited to share that I’ll be joining OpenAI and look forward to working with the exceptional team there. It was a difficult decision to move on.”
[Related: OpenAI Unveils Partner Program, $150M Investment; Channel Chief Sees ‘Massive Opportunity’ Ahead]
The unexpected departure of Shazeer comes as Google pours billions into AI infrastructure and Gemini innovation, while at the same time unveiling its inaugural partner program this week: the OpenAI Partner Network.
Shazeer was vice president of engineering and co-leader of Google’s Gemini, which competes directly against companies like OpenAI.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: Hiring Shazeer ‘Will Be Worth The Wait!’
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X Wednesday night to tout the hiring of the AI innovator.
“Noam is one of the people I have most wanted to work with since the very beginning of OpenAI. Only took 10 years,” Altman said on X.
“I think it will be worth the wait!” he added.
In a statement to CRN confirming Shazeer’s departure, Google said, “We are grateful for Noam’s meaningful contributions to Google over the years.”
OpenAI privately filed for an IPO in May, expecting to hit the public markets sometime later this year.
OpenAI ‘Must Have A Huge Bank Account,’ Says Google Partner
In the company’s biggest channel announcement in its history, OpenAI unveiled its inaugural partner program this week, the OpenAI Partner Network, in a move to drive OpenAI’s AI technology into the enterprise and more businesses.
OpenAI’s partner program is a three-tier program with specializations, such as OpenAI Codex, with an up-front $150 million channel investment from the San Franciso-based AI superstar. The company plans to train 300,000 certified OpenAI consultants by the end of 2026.
Leading OpenAI’s channel charge is Google Cloud’s former partner program leader, Colleen Kapase, who jumped from Google Cloud to OpenAI earlier this year.
One vice president from a solution provider who is a top Google Cloud partner said the hiring of Shazeer is a blow to Google Cloud, but a win for OpenAI.
“OpenAI must have a huge bank account to be hiring Noam and Colleen and all these other very expensive people this year,” said the vice president, who declined to be identified.
Other huge OpenAI hires this year include the creator and founder of OpenClaw, Peter Steinberger, as well as Denise Dresser, the former CEO of Slack.
“Google has a deep bench, for sure, regarding their talent and employing AI experts—so I’m not worried too much about Gemini or Workspace or [Google Cloud Platform],” he said.
However, he did say “it’s a bit of a sting” to see the departure of top Google executives like Kapase and Shazeer.
“OpenAI is just making massive, massive moves right now. I mean, entering the channel officially. Hiring Google’s partner program leader and someone [Shazeer] Google paid a ton of money for,” he said. “We’re now looking to see if maybe we should do something with OpenAI.”
Shazeer’s Google Career; Character.AI Rehiring
Shazeer first joined Google as a software engineer in 2000, one of the first few hundred employees at Google
He rose through the ranks to become a principal software engineer by 2012.
Shazeer left Google in late 2021 to form AI chatbot startup Character.AI alongside the company’s co-founder and president, Daniel De Freitas.
The Silicon Valley-based company quickly grew to become one of the world’s hottest AI startups—reaching a $1 billion valuation by 2023.
In August 2024, Google rehired De Freitas, Shazeer and other members of Character.AI’s research team to help lead Google’s AI research business unit, DeepMind, and Google Gemini innovation.
Google’s $2.7 billion deal to rehire Shazeer and De Freitas also included a license deal that enabled Google to license Character.AI’s technology.
