MACHINE AGE CARTOON

NEVER HIRED. ONLY ACQUIRED.

By Zimbo · October 6, 2026

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AI cartoon by Zimbo: Sunday strip: Noam Shazeer — 2000 pre-IPO Google spell checker; 2016/17 mixture-of-experts wakes one expert; 2017 'Attention Is All You Need'; 2021 walks out with De Freitas, character.ai $1B; Aug 2024 Google's $2.7B deal; Jun 2026 strides into OpenAI. Kicker: NEVER HIRED. ONLY ACQUIRED.
Noam Shazeer wrote the paper everything runs on, taught the giants to wake only their best experts, then let the biggest labs pay to have him — twice. Google, Character.AI, Google again, OpenAI. In six panels.Zimbo for AI News Page
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