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Jeff Dean

Jeff Dean

@jeff-dean · 22 positions · On ppll ↗

Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research, at Google since 1999, where he co-created MapReduce, Bigtable, TensorFlow and the TPU.

Jeff Dean did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

7 of Jeff Dean's claims fit 6 mental models. Most often: Feedback loops, Bottlenecks, First principles.

Models they name

Their own words name the idea.

First principles

Reason up from what is known to be true, not from what is usually done or said.

Used by 20 others

Good ideas come from asking how you would solve a problem from first principles, rather than staying anchored on how it is solved today.

  1. Jeff Dean Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research you know, because sometimes if you just squint at a problem and you think about not necessarily being anchored on exactly how that problem is solved today, but how you would solve it from first principles, you can come up with really good ideas that are, you know, maybe not what other people are thinking about. Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com · 30 Jul 2026 · 10:05 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    you know, because sometimes if you just squint at a problem and you think about not necessarily being anchored on exactly how that problem is solved today, but how you would solve it from first principles, you can come up with really good ideas that are, you know, maybe not what other people are thinking about.

    Watch from 10:05 plays here

    ↗Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com

    30 Jul 2026 · video · 57m · spoken · machine transcript

Models we see in what they say

Our reading: their claim applies the idea without naming it. The claim is theirs; filing it here is ours.

Feedback loops

Shorten the loop between doing and finding out; whatever a loop rewards is what you become.

Used by 62 others

Learned approximations of slow simulators change what science is possible, by turning a six-month screening run into something you do over lunch.

  1. Jeff Dean Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research And I think there's a lot of room in a lot of domains for much faster validation models, possibly learned valu validation models that can uh you know get you a a approximation to the true answer much much more rapidly. And that changes how those experimental loops can be thought of and how quickly you can go around those loops. Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com · 30 Jul 2026 · 45:46 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    And I think there's a lot of room in a lot of domains for much faster validation models, possibly learned valu validation models that can uh you know get you a a approximation to the true answer much much more rapidly. And that changes how those experimental loops can be thought of and how quickly you can go around those loops.

    Watch from 45:46 plays here

    ↗Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com

    30 Jul 2026 · video · 57m · spoken · machine transcript

There is no real impediment to models running their own research loop and improving themselves at a far more rapid rate.

  1. Jeff Dean Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research Um but I think there's no uh you know real impediment to making that be a much more automated loop where the model itself decides it's going to explore or maybe with a nudge from some people uh at the various highest level like oh why don't you try some new ideas around model architectures that incorporate this and then it will go run lots of experiments uh see which ones work and then those will get incorporated at a much more rapid rate Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com · 30 Jul 2026 · 47:02 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    Um but I think there's no uh you know real impediment to making that be a much more automated loop where the model itself decides it's going to explore or maybe with a nudge from some people uh at the various highest level like oh why don't you try some new ideas around model architectures that incorporate this and then it will go run lots of experiments uh see which ones work and then those will get incorporated at a much more rapid rate

    Watch from 47:02 plays here

    ↗Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com

    30 Jul 2026 · video · 57m · spoken · machine transcript

Bottlenecks

A system moves only as fast as its narrowest point; speed up anything else and nothing changes.

Used by 88 others

Inference, not training, is now the constraint, and specialized low-energy hardware will beat general-purpose GPUs and TPUs on latency.

  1. Jeff Dean Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research Yeah, I mean it's a little different, but I think uh you're going to see more and more uh uh high performance and um low energy uh inference hardware systems because I think everyone is now realizing that inference is the key to making you know these agent-based systems be available to more and more people and that latency is really important and that specialization of the hardware is a really key way you can make uh things that are more energy efficient and lower latency than more general purpose uh computational devices like say GPUs or TPUs Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com · 30 Jul 2026 · 3:36 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    Yeah, I mean it's a little different, but I think uh you're going to see more and more uh uh high performance and um low energy uh inference hardware systems because I think everyone is now realizing that inference is the key to making you know these agent-based systems be available to more and more people and that latency is really important and that specialization of the hardware is a really key way you can make uh things that are more energy efficient and lower latency than more general purpose uh computational devices like say GPUs or TPUs

    Watch from 3:36 plays here

    ↗Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com

    30 Jul 2026 · video · 57m · spoken · machine transcript

Moats

What protects a business is whatever a rival cannot copy, and that is rarely the software.

Used by 10 others

A startup's durable advantage over a general model is having visibility into data the general model will never see.

  1. Jeff Dean Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research Yeah, I mean I think uh sometimes it's uh a product that you build that might have access to particular kind of data that the underlying model might not the a general model. So it might be you're building something to help users organize all their own personal information and the model won't necessarily have access to that. And so there you can have a big advantage because all of a sudden your model has visibility or your product has visibility into important data. Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com · 30 Jul 2026 · 29:04 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    Yeah, I mean I think uh sometimes it's uh a product that you build that might have access to particular kind of data that the underlying model might not the a general model. So it might be you're building something to help users organize all their own personal information and the model won't necessarily have access to that. And so there you can have a big advantage because all of a sudden your model has visibility or your product has visibility into important data.

    Watch from 29:04 plays here

    ↗Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com

    30 Jul 2026 · video · 57m · spoken · machine transcript

Play long games

A longer horizon makes some problems solvable and some short-term wins look like what they are.

Used by 41 others

Before building on a gap in the general models, work out whether that gap survives six months or three years.

  1. Jeff Dean Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research Um but I I would also caution that the general models are definitely getting better at a broader and broader range of things. So you have to figure out, you know, is that thing you're working on, is that going to be a durable thing or do you think the models uh at the forefront are going to get better at that in the next six months or 12 months or is it something they're not going to be able to do for a couple years or three years? And you know, you you want to weigh that as you're as you're deciding what to work on. Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com · 30 Jul 2026 · 26:50 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    Um but I I would also caution that the general models are definitely getting better at a broader and broader range of things. So you have to figure out, you know, is that thing you're working on, is that going to be a durable thing or do you think the models uh at the forefront are going to get better at that in the next six months or 12 months or is it something they're not going to be able to do for a couple years or three years? And you know, you you want to weigh that as you're as you're deciding what to work on.

    Watch from 26:50 plays here

    ↗Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com

    30 Jul 2026 · video · 57m · spoken · machine transcript

Value moves to what stays scarce

When something becomes cheap and plentiful, the value moves to whatever is still rare next to it.

Used by 60 others

When agents do the building, the scarce skill is taste: choosing which problem is worth the time at all.

  1. Jeff Dean Chief Scientist at Google DeepMind and Google Research Yeah, I mean I think it's really having incredibly good taste in what you ask your agents to work on, right? That is the the crux of you know from my background uh a research problem. You know, a researcher can have all the tools and all the techniques, but often most of the battle is what problem are you gonna spend your time on? Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com · 30 Jul 2026 · 34:03 into the videoAll korrents from this video
    Yeah, I mean I think it's really having incredibly good taste in what you ask your agents to work on, right? That is the the crux of you know from my background uh a research problem. You know, a researcher can have all the tools and all the techniques, but often most of the battle is what problem are you gonna spend your time on?

    Watch from 34:03 plays here

    ↗Jeff Dean: The 1% Rule for Building in AIyoutube.com

    30 Jul 2026 · video · 57m · spoken · machine transcript