“Dive Headfirst”: Isomorphic Labs President Max Jaderberg on his Biggest Decision

Today, we're back with Max Jaderberg, president of Isomorphic Labs, to talk about his life lessons.

After years at DeepMind working on deep learning, generative models and reinforcement learning, Max helped launch Isomorphic in 2021 to turn the promise of AlphaFold into new medicine. Cameron McLain and Tommy Stadlen talk to Max about why he rejected a consultancy contract to do a PhD at Oxford, and why he later left core AI research after writing a pro/con list on a whiteboard in his loft. He also explains how Isomorphic keeps a startup's hunger (even with Alphabet's backing), and what nearly 15 years of working with Demis Hassabis has taught him.

He speaks about:

• Deciding what "superpower" his research could create
• Whether DeepMind could ever have done it alone, without selling, and how Alphabet backs its investments
• Keeping a startup culture, with a giant's backing 
• Why Isomorphic wanted a global investor base in its latest round
• Trusting Demis Hassabis's vision (including an early Nobel Prize prediction he didn't believe)
• Rejecting a job contract to do a PhD 
• Working 24/7 in his head, but making time for Counter-Strike - and needing plenty of sleep...

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

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