Demis Hassabis used his game studio as a 'Trojan horse' to fund AI research
airesearch12 · x · 2026-09-11
Demis Hassabis reveals that in the early '90s, when AI research was impossible to fund, he used his game company Elixir Studios as a 'Trojan horse' — game revenue quietly bankrolled his AI research ambitions. Commenters marvel that he saw this coming as a teenager and shaped his entire life accordingly.
More from Companies & People
- Biotech founder: most 2023 customers are dead or pivoted to data generation — kenbwork · 2026-10-28
- Anne Griffin hosts 20-person SF salon on the product decisions behind AI agents — annetgriffin · 2026-10-28
- dhh: Windows Copilot key was so bad it may have seeded mainstream AI backlash — mhdfaran · 2026-10-28
- Thermo-backed CTO says AI is in its dial-up phase, touts disaggregated compute for an ultrafast 'broadband moment' — beffjezos · 2026-10-28
- Design team: AI now produces the work overnight, humans just make the calls — thesephist · 2026-10-28
- Nonprofit hiring Director of AI to build foundation models on 11M+ genomes — anshulkundaje · 2026-10-28