Jeff Dean's hour-by-hour breakdown of his Google exit: an 'emotional' video chat, Yoga at 7, and 'unemployed' at 11:59

Aug 11, 2026 09:47 PM - 1 day ago 92

Google's erstwhile main intelligence Jeff Dean

Twas the nighttime earlier Jeff Dean near Google, and he was up astatine 2 a.m. responding to messages.

Dean near the hunt elephantine past week to build his ain AI startup, Discovery Loop. He was Google's 30th employee, spending decades climbing the ladder to his last domiciled of chief scientist. So, he had a batch of goodbye chats to respond to.

At the KDD Conference successful Jeju, South Korea, Dean shared the hourly schedule of his last 2 days astatine Google.

"For my Google colleagues who mightiness person sent maine soul chat messages aft I closed my laptop for a last clip connected Thursday afternoon, I apologize for my deficiency of response!" Dean wrote on X.

Dean collapsed the news connected a Wednesday

Before past Wednesday, Dean said that astir 12 group astatine Google knew he was leaving.

At 8:30 a.m., he collapsed the news to "139 adjacent colleagues" successful a video chat. It was emotional, he said, pinch tons of tears and "explosions of bosom and sad look emojis."

How tin 1 person 139 adjacent colleagues? Remember that Dean managed mammoth teams, particularly while moving Google's Research and AI teams. Dean led astir 4,400 people, he said successful Discovery Loop's transportation deck.

At 9 a.m., Dean announced Discovery Loop and sent his soul farewell message.

By 2:30 p.m., Googlers were cramming into a mini room to observe Dean. His farewell ceremony had astir 1,500 colleagues successful attendance, he said, successful a café abstraction that fits 300.

Dean has agelong been an athlete. In his farewell message, Dean cited motorcycle rides to Monterey for the company's off-sites and a running group called "Run aliases Else…" His second-to-last time was nary different. He had a 7 p.m. yoga session, followed by an 8:30 p.m. shot convention game.

Then came the messages. At 10:30 p.m., Dean recovered 400 "incredibly touching" messages connected his soul relationship — meaning that they'd vanish arsenic soon arsenic he left. He stayed up till 2:30 a.m. responding to them, he said.

On Thursday, Dean was flooded pinch messages

Dean said he woke up astatine 6:30 a.m. connected Thursday.

He had 250 much messages connected the company's soul chat system, he said, positive 500 much that CCed his individual email. "At slightest those won't vanish successful 8 hours," he wrote.

By 5:20 p.m., Dean had responded to almost each of the messages wrong Google's chat system, "but they support coming in." He closed his laptop.

At 11:59:59 p.m., he gained a caller title: "Unemployed."

Just a infinitesimal later, he had a caller job. Dean was now the cofounder of Discovery Loop, alongside immoderate of his "awesome colleagues." His exit from Google was complete.