Jeff Dean and three other prominent AI researchers from Google are launching a new start-up with financial backing from Google. This transition reflects a shift in Google's internal power dynamics and indicates ongoing investor interest in new AI ventures.

On January 24, 1956, American Telephone and Telegraph Company was the largest private company globally, generating nearly 2% of the U.S. GDP and employing 746,000 people. The company owned Bell Labs, which developed significant technologies including the transistor, solar cell, information theory, and radio astronomy, and was involved in laying the first transatlantic telephone cable.