Markets & Business
OpenAI hires Google and White House veterans for policy push
OpenAI has hired Google veteran Noam Shazeer and former White House official Dean Ball, as the company arguably positions itself as a favorite within the U.S. administration.
OpenAI is expanding its leadership and policy teams by hiring AI researcher Noam Shazeer and former White House official Dean Ball. Shazeer, who joined Google in 2000, is a co-author of the seminal 2017 paper that introduced the Transformer architecture, a foundational AI technology. He spent his career at Google, leaving only for a three-year period to co-found Character AI. Two years ago, Google rehired Shazeer in a $2.7 billion deal to access the startup’s technology. Shazeer announced his departure from Google on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Dean Ball will join OpenAI on July 6 to lead a new team called Strategic Futures. Ball, who previously helped publish America’s AI Action Plan during a stint in the White House before rejoining the Foundation for American Innovation as a senior fellow, announced the move on Thursday. Reporting to Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon, Ball’s team will focus on frontier AI policy and internal governance, including catastrophic risk, recursive self-improvement, labor market impact, and the relationship between frontier labs, governments, and society. Ball noted that internal governance will be central to the future of AI, writing, “In other words, internal governance will be more central to the future of AI than most people realize.”
These hires come as OpenAI arguably positions itself as a favorite within the U.S. administration, contrasting with the regulatory challenges facing its rivals. Recently, President Donald Trump ordered an export control ban on Anthropic’s latest models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5—a government restriction that forced the rival AI firm to take those models down entirely to avoid noncompliance. The contrast highlights how OpenAI is securing policy expertise as it prepares for an IPO, where government interference could represent a risk factor in its S-1 filing.
Shazeer’s transition to OpenAI also follows reports of past controversies during his tenure at Google. According to The Information, Shazeer reportedly voiced opinions on internal messaging boards about transgender identity and Israel’s war in Gaza that resulted in management deleting his posts.
Why it matters
OpenAI is bolstering its leadership team with hires in policy and AI research as it prepares for an IPO, while navigating a competitive landscape marked by government intervention against rivals like Anthropic.