Google closes $1.5 billion Mechanize deal: Epoch AI cofounder Tamay Besiroglu moves to DeepMind
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Publication time restored from the build log. . Updated: .
The main resource in the SI race is people, and the giants are paying billions for teams, bypassing classic acquisitions.
Google completed a "hire plus license" deal worth about $1.5 billion with Mechanize, a startup making SI coding agents. Cofounder and former CEO Tamay Besiroglu became a researcher at Google DeepMind, and more than a dozen employees moved with him, mostly to work on model "mid-training." The license is non-exclusive, as in the Windsurf and Character.AI deals, which helps avoid antitrust review; Mechanize's new CEO is Giv Assadi.
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