My First Million Story Of The Most Important Founder You've Never Heard Of
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Jan 19, 2026 Discover the fascinating journey of Demis Hassabis and the creation of DeepMind. Learn how childhood chess success sparked his love for computers and paved the way for his AI obsession. The hosts delve into the groundbreaking AlphaGo and the legendary Move 37, showcasing its impact on the AI world. They also highlight the protein-folding Olympics and AlphaFold's remarkable accuracy leap, revealing how AI is revolutionizing biology. Tune in for insights on the future of AI, leadership, and entrepreneurial opportunities in computational biology!
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Prodigy Turned Mission-Driven Founder
- Demis Hassabis grew from a child chess prodigy to building early game AI and used tournament winnings to buy his first computer.
- He abandoned chess after a humiliating match and vowed to harness human brainpower with computers to tackle bigger problems.
Turned Down A Million Pounds For AI
- At 17 Demis turned down a million-pound offer to stay at Bullfrog and chose to go to Cambridge to study AI instead.
- He prioritized long-term mission work over immediate wealth to pursue building thinking machines.
Games As The Shortcut To General Learning
- DeepMind taught agents from raw reward signals across many games, proving learning-from-play scales from Pong to complex tasks.
- Games served as controlled, repeatable environments for building general learning algorithms.
