Robin Dhara

interesting people with interesting stories Comms Director of @TEDxLondon, media strategy for @seeperarts @evangrant @rehabstudio all musings are my own

[Ricardo @Ric_RTP]

The CEO of Google DeepMind just admitted that if the decision had been his, we would've cured cancer before anyone ever used ChatGPT.

And that's not even the scariest thing he said on a recent interview.

Demis Hassabis is one of the most important people alive in AI.

He won the Nobel Prize last year for AlphaFold, the system that cracked the 50 year protein folding problem. 3 million scientists now use his tool. Almost every new drug being developed will touch it at some stage.

In a new interview, he was asked about the moment ChatGPT launched and Google went into "code red." His answer was one of the most revealing things any AI leader has ever said on the record:

"If I'd had my way, I would have left AI in the lab for longer. Done more things like AlphaFold. Maybe cured cancer or something like that."

Read that again.

The man running Google's entire AI division is publicly saying the commercial AI race we're all living through was a MISTAKE. That the industry got hijacked by a chatbot when it could have been solving the biggest problems in science and medicine.

His vision was simple:

Build AI slowly, carefully, like CERN. Use it to crack root node problems one at a time. Cancer. Energy. New materials.

Let humanity benefit from real breakthroughs while the foundational science was figured out over a decade or two.

Then ChatGPT dropped in November 2022 and everything changed.

Demis described what happened next as getting locked into a "ferocious commercial pressure race" that none of the labs can escape from. On top of that, the US vs China dynamic added geopolitical pressure.

The result is everyone sprinting toward products instead of breakthroughs, shipping chatbots while the scientific opportunity gets buried under marketing cycles and quarterly earnings.

But he's not saying progress isn't happening...

He's saying the progress got redirected away from the things that actually matter most.

And then it got even scarier:

Because when Demis was asked what he worries about with AI, he laid out two threats.

The first is what everyone talks about: Bad actors using AI for harm. Terrorist groups. Hostile nation states. Cyberattacks at scale.

But that's not the threat he's most worried about.

His second worry is AI itself going rogue. Not today's models. The models coming in the next two to four years as the industry enters what he calls "the agentic era."

Systems that can complete entire tasks autonomously. Systems that are increasingly capable and increasingly hard to control.

His exact words:

"How do we make sure the guardrails are put in place so they do exactly what they've been told to do, and there's no way of them circumventing that or accidentally breaching those guardrails? That's going to be an incredibly hard technical challenge if you think about how powerful and smart and capable these systems eventually get."

A Nobel Prize winner who runs one of the 3 most advanced AI labs on Earth just said publicly that within two to four years, we're entering a phase where AI alignment becomes a real problem, and the technical challenge of solving it is enormous.

And almost nobody is paying enough attention.

He called for international cooperation between labs, AI safety institutes, and academia to tackle the problem. He said this is the thing even the experts aren't thinking about enough.

He said the only way to get through the AGI moment safely is if everyone starts treating this with the seriousness it deserves.

Most AI CEOs give you careful PR answers about "responsible development" and move on.

Demis said something different...

He said the commercial race FORCED us into a premature deployment of a technology we barely understand, and the window to get alignment right before the next generation of agents shows up is two to four years.

If the man who built the system that might cure cancer is telling you he wishes it had happened first, maybe we should listen to what he says is coming next.

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

FundBank Acquires Irish Blockchain Startup Trrue Chain in €10m Deal as Institutional Crypto Demand Rises https://t.co/4ewkYRT7JW cc @fundbank

[audium capital partners @audiumcp]

FundBank acquires Ireland's Trrue Chain for €10m https://t.co/aF8TlpFBrV

[Business Post @businessposthq]

FundBank, the fund management firm founded by former Waystone executives, has secured authorisation from the Central Bank of Ireland to open an Irish branch https://t.co/zhr3ZXM3bR

[Business Post @businessposthq]

FundBank, the institutional banking firm founded by former Waystone executives, has acquired the Irish blockchain startup Trrue Chain as it aims to expand its European operations in digital assets and crypto https://t.co/miGpXm500H

[Business Post @businessposthq]

Former Waystone executive to lead financial services firm FundBank’s new Irish office https://t.co/HwTL9aAyay

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

@Katie_Roof I've been supremely impressed by this too.

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

Discovered the great writing of @IKrietzberg last week and can't recommend it highly enough to those of us who work across AI, advertising, tech and consumer brands.

[Ian Krietzberg @IKrietzberg]

I am beyond thrilled today to announce that I am joining the incredible team at @PuckNews.

I'll be launching a new AI newsletter, where, twice a week, I'll be breaking down the latest developments across the field of AI.

Hope you'll join me!

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

@jon_stokes just stumbled across your Symbolic AI platform and super intrigued! Figured i'd reach out here and say it looks great!

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

@Digiday @KimekoM @sarapatt I've just jumped back into ad and creative industries after a hiatus in fintech! Looking forward to taking a listen @KimekoM :)

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

@MarinaHyde this was a bigly enjoyable read this morning

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

@Vuelio @SkintDad @Monevator @DebtCamel @TheHumblePenny @TFWilderness @BeeMoneySavvy @blackgrlfinance @4SavvyMums @workingdaddy93 @christinapiril1 thanks for putting these together! been looking through all of them this past month - HUGE help when planning kids and parenting/finance stories..#finance

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

@dickiebush review

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

@emmaloffhagen Just sent you something being announced tomorrow from a major London retailer :) good for kids on the gadget side. hope you like it!

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

@notnotphoebe I think either myself or many people in my network might be able to help you here. Is there a specific angle you want me to explore?

[Max Pog @maxpogu]

Join for free: a virtual conf with 1000+ LPs, Family Offices, Funds of Funds, & GPs of VC, PE, RE, & Hedge Funds – Nov 26 on Zoom. $100M+ & $1B+ Single FOs, LPs, FoFs & other investment firms have confirmed their participation. Like & reply "+" to get the invite in DM (we're at 1200+ regs now).

Our previous event attracted attendees with a combined AUM of $1.6 trillion, including: 270 Single Family Offices, 90 Multi Family Offices, 180 Funds of Funds, 300 LPs, 570 angels, & hundreds of GPs.

For the first time, we're adding a virtual Private Networking Lounge with LPs, FoFs & FOs in addition to speakers' Zoom panels & presentations (US, EU, & UAE):

1) $1B+ Family Office panel: In what and how are we investing? RE, PE, VC & other alternatives – Shubhra Jain @ Tarsadia SFO ($2B); Neetu Puranikmath @ Cooper Family Office.

2) 2x+ DPI Club: How to return your LPs more than expected? – Justin Stebbins @ Northgate Capital ($5B); Douglas Mellinger @ Clarion Capital Partners ($1.8B)

3) Family Office Trends 2025 – Uli Maybach @ Maybach Foundation; Christian D Evans @ Pax Fortis Multi-Family Office. Moderated by Valerie Bertele @ Yellow Rocks.

4) 1st-generation UHNWI strategies: 1. Launch a SFO, or 2. Join a Multi-Family Office, or 3. Other ways to preserve & grow capital? – Shane Neman @ SFO / Neman Ventures; Lisa Morris @ AKS Single Family Office.

5) How to Grow AUM of a Fund in 2025: Best Fundraising Practices for PE, VC, RE, & Hedge Funds – David Butler @ Argosy Real Estate Partners ($3.6B); Jaclyn Baumgarten @ IDC Ventures ($650M AUM, IDC Network $2.5B); Ed H. @ Arena LP ($3.4B).

6) Why FoFs exist, and why LPs accept double-layer fees? – Chuck Tedeschi @ Top Tier Capital Partners ($8B); Scott Sherman @ Mesa Lane Capital Partners.

7) How to harness AI for sourcing, evaluation, and reporting? – Logan Allin @ Fin Capital.

8) How Governments Can Attract Capital, Innovations & Talent by Focusing on Venture Studios? – Preslav Panayotov @ VentureWaves Innovation Network

9) State of Venture Q3 2024 – Benjamin Lawrence @ CB Insights.

10) $2T growing Private Credit Market & what it means for Private Credit Secondaries – Brett Hickey @ StarMountain Capital ($4B+).

11) Collaboration between Family Offices, Venture Studios, VC Funds, & Corporations – Ahmed Nasser Al Nowais @ Annex Investments; Daniela Plattner @ Palm Venture Studios; Marc Wesselink @ venturerock.

12) What do our private banking clients want to invest in? Our portfolio construction – Orley J. Pacheco @ Wells Fargo ($2T)

@margauxmaccoll @ @TechCrunch, @SaacksAttack @ @BusinessInsider, Abby Schultz @ @barronsonline, @theMetz will moderate some of the panels

More speakers/moderators on the website.

[Colin Keeley @ColinKeeley]

This guy is building an acquisition empire in Italy.

He buys software companies like Evernote but never sells them.

Meet the hipster of private equity:

[Robin Dhara @TheRedRobin]

I CANNOT believe @netflix just cancelled KAOS...I needed that!

[Kit Stone @bykitstone]

This is frustrating. #KAOS⚡️ barely had time to fly. It featured an eclectic cast, incredible diversity, and a twist on Greek mythology. Season 2 would've been a banger. If Netflix isn't going to allow its content to grow, give it up to another platform. It just got started! 🥺

[Vicky Spratt @Victoria_Spratt]

Kate’s reporting on Grenfell has been exceptional and exemplary

[Chamath Palihapitiya @chamath]

Founder Mode?
Manager Mode?

Even after all the navel gazing on X this weekend, I still don't have the faintest idea what either of these are.

In my experience, after 25 years in Silicon Valley, there is first principles management and stupid management and I've seen founders and managers, alike, exhibit both.

When your company isn't working, the only solution is to take the time, as laborious as it sounds, to break your business down to its core essentials and rebuild it from the ground up with zero nostalgia or loyalty to people or technology.

There is a certain ruthlessness that is required and it isn't borne in a title but in a psychological makeup. Some have it and some don't.

And if done with high fidelity, it tends to work.

Everything else, in my experience, is praying at an altar of a false god that conflates correlation, causation, luck and timing.

Good luck to all the players.