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Blomfield: Google lost its transformer lead to OpenAI through excessive caution

Tom Blomfield · How To Design Better AI Apps · Y Combinator · May 23, 2025 · at 7:11

Tom Blomfield, YC Partner and Monzo founder, discusses how corporate risk aversion and fear of AI hallucinations caused Google to fall behind OpenAI despite inventing transformers.

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“And so, I think, like, Google were really on the cutting edge of this transformer technology, and were like, leapfrogged by OpenAI, just because I was too cautious to put stuff out there.”

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