Don’t get caught in big cog of US giants, says Google’s ex-dealmaker
Former finance chief who engineered Deepmind deal sees things differently now, finds Hannah Boland
When Google bought Deepmind five years ago, it claimed it would preserve the London-based technology start-up’s autonomy and set up an independent ethics board for the artificial intelligence venture.
After Google’s restructuring to Alphabet, it would be part of the holding company, rather than fall under Google’s umbrella. It would even prevent Google staff from entering Deepmind offices.
But any illusion of Deepmind’s independence disappeared last week as one of its co-founders, Mustafa Suleyman, was placed on leave in a mutual decision with the company.
“Mustafa’s taking some time out right now after ten hectic years,” a Deepmind spokesman said.
It is a situation Patrick Pichette probably could have foreseen. Google’s former chief financial officer orchestrated the deal.
Now, he says, he actively advises companies against selling out early. “My counsel is, why would you sell yourself?” Montreal-born Pichette says.
“You’ll be caught in the big cog of Amazon or Google when you could actually control your own destiny, be independent, build what you want to build.”
Of course, from the Google side of things, Deepmind was seen as a “steal” – the chance to tap into a gold mine of talented data scientists. But, he says, there was so much potential for Deepmind to grow itself.
“And if you have the potential to become a true global player, absolutely, my counsel would be not to sell. My counsel would be to build.”
It is now just over four years since Pichette left Google, having announced his retirement in a touching memo in which he spoke about the “tough choices” he had to make over his life.
“Simply, I could not find a good argument to tell Tamar [his wife] we should wait any longer for us to grab our backpacks and hit the road,” he had written. Since then, the Canadian says, he has had “so many adventures” with his family, recalling his travels
across Nepal, Antarctica, Australia and Patagonia, the time he climbed Mont Blanc and his training for the Iron Man challenge.
“My agenda was absolutely packed,” the 56-year-old says, his bright eyes framed by neat thin glasses. “I was in the middle of nowhere, and my only worries were things like, how do I get a bus from one side of India to the other?”
It had been a well-deserved break. Pichette had been at Google for seven years, an experience that was “24/7 all the time” – especially when Eric
‘If you have the potential to become a true global player, absolutely, my counsel would be not to sell’
Schmidt stepped down as chief and his workload “exploded”.
“When I joined, Google was small, roughly 15,000 people. But it was growing super fast, and we had to build all the machinery. Then we had the transition from Eric to Larry [Page], and basically I inherited most of the admin functions.
“I didn’t sleep much,” he admits. “You have to remember, if you’re head of human resources, you’re head of HR for all of the world, so you have to be everywhere.
“You meet all these people worldwide, through Europe, through Asia, Australia. Actually what was really fun was building one culture everywhere.”
The mention of Google’s culture may raise a few eyebrows. After all, there was mass walkout of employees last year amid reports one of the company’s developers was paid hush money to leave the business following accusations of sexual assault – claims the developer denied.
“This was after my time, so I can’t really talk about it,” says Pichette quickly. “But I can tell you that during my tenure, we were working really hard at its culture.
“I think it’s a very different place by nature of its scale, and if you think about it, it’s so much more difficult to keep an effective control over your culture when you have so many people. It has to be a challenge.”
But, he says, this is an issue that affects every large company, “not just Google”.
“I am sure every large company has a bad apple. The only question is, when you find them, do you take action? And with Google, I think the minute they found something, they acted. That’s been my experience.”
For now, though, Pichette’s focus isn’t on current tech titans. It’s on the “next Googles, Facebooks and Amazons in the UK”. It’s on “building them into global champions”, by providing more capital and coaching.
He certainly has the cash behind him. This year, he opened the London office for Canadian venture capital firm Inovia Capital, which has set aside a $400m (£327m) fund for growth-stage companies, and $200m for early stage, in the region.
This may sound like a big task in itself, but on top of this, Pichette has taken over as the chairman of Oxford University’s venture fund.
Next month he is launching a new seed-stage programme to coach entrepreneurs, and is also involved in a range of projects – from eradicating curable cataracts to building wildlife corridors.
“There’s no doubt I’m a workaholic: I think I was just a hyperactive kid that turned into this hyperactive adult,” he laughs.
“But now, I think of myself as just the conduit. At the end of the day, when I’ve finished my meetings, I can go and have a good dinner right? These people go back to the office, they continue to code. They’re the real heroes. I’m just chipping in.”