3 weeks ago
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Three members of Google’s NotebookLM team, including its team lead and designer, have announced they are leaving Google for a new stealth startup.
On Linkedin, ex-team lead Raiza Martin said she and her two other co-founders, designer Jason Spielman and engineer Stephen Hughes, “couldn’t shake the feeling that there’s a massive opportunity to build something transformative in this space.”
The startup is in full stealth mode with only a bare-bones website that gives no details about its purpose or even its name. It’s not clear if the startup will focus on things that NotebookLM went viral for such as AI-generated podcasts and AI-assisted notetaking, or do something totally different.
In comments to TechCrunch, Martin gave few details but hinted that the startup would be consumer-facing, emphasizing the team wanted to create something that leverages the latest AI models to build something useful to regular people.
“As the frontier models and their capabilities continue to grow, thoughtful products are required to make the benefits of this technology accessible, useful, and obvious to everyday people – so our team is going to be focused on building a user-first AI product,” she said.
Martin added that the new startup is in its very early stages and has not announced any funding yet. However, she noted that “support outside of Google (from fellow founders, investors, academics, people who want to join) has been tremendous and it’s been really encouraging for our small team.”
Charles Rollet is a senior reporter at TechCrunch. His investigative reporting has led to U.S. government sanctions against four tech companies, including China’s largest AI firm. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Charles covered the surveillance industry for IPVM. Charles is based in San Francisco, where he enjoys hiking with his dogs. You can contact Charles securely on Signal at charlesrollet.12 or +1-628-282-2811.
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