Both are very smart.
replyBut Jeff was responsible for a lot more of what is actually used today than Demis.
Demis is responsible for a lot more of the hype though ;)
I think saying Jeff's contributions were a long time ago must represent some kind of lack of understanding of Jeff's recent contributions.
Jeff has still been focused more on infrastructure, and that is just more hidden most of the time.
I would say,if i was forced to pick someone whose vision to follow, it would definitely be Jeff and not Demis, even today.
Agree. Demis is very smart, but obviously less humble and more interested in self-promotion. There have been multiple Deepmind documentaries that mythologize the Demis origin story.
replyDemis is great -- this is not a zero-sum game. Who built what, and the relative importance, is an interesting discussion to have, but it's orthogonal to my point.
replyWhich is: When you think about Google, true, old, "don't be evil", tech excellence Google, you don't think about Demis. You think about Jeff's and Sanjay's geeky, technically uncompromising, faces.