AI Founders Jump Ship for Big Tech, Leaving Colleagues Stranded (Correct)

Dominic Perella was prepared to be yelled at when he addressed about 100 employees gathered at the posh Silverado Resort in Napa, California, for a staff retreat last August. Days earlier, Perella had become Character.AI’s interim chief executive officer when the company announced that Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas, the renowned artificial intelligence researchers who founded the startup three years earlier, had exited for Google as part of a $2.7 billion licensing deal with the search giant.

During a no-holds-barred Q&A, Perella’s employees—who’d previously known him only as general counsel—grilled the new boss about Character’s future. “What are ...