--- title: "Google Is Allegedly Paying Top AI Researchers to Just Sit Around and Not Work for the Competition" description: "Google has one weird trick to hoard its artificial intelligence talent from poachers — paying them to not work at all." date: "2025-04-13" modified: "2025-04-13" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/google-top-ai-poaching-leave" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Google" tags: - "ai industry" - "contracts" - "DeepMind" - "Google" --- # Google Is Allegedly Paying Top AI Researchers to Just Sit Around and Not Work for the Competition ![Google has one weird trick to hoard its artificial intelligence talent from poachers — paying them to not work at all.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Google apparently has one weird trick to hoard its talent from poachers: paying them to not work. As [*Business Insider* reports](), some United Kingdom-based employees at Google's DeepMind AI lab are paid to do nothing for six months — or, in fewer cases, up to a year — after they quit their jobs. Known as "garden leave," this type of cushy clause is the luckier stepsister to so-called "noncompete" agreements, which prohibit employees and contractors from working with a competitor for a designated period of time after they depart an employer. Ostensibly meant to prevent aggressive poaching, these sorts of clauses also [bar outgoing employees]() from working with competitors. Often deployed in tandem with noncompetes, garden leave agreements are more prevalent in the UK than across the pond in the United States, where [according to the Horton Group law firm](), such clauses are generally reserved for "highly-paid executives." Though it seems like a pretty good gig — or lack thereof — if you can get it, employees at DeepMind's London HQ told *BI* that garden leave and noncompetes stymie their ability to lock down meaningful work after they leave the lab. While noncompetes are increasingly a nonstarter in the United States amid [growing legislative pushes]() to make them unenforceable, they're perfectly legal and [quite commonplace in the UK]() so long as a company explicitly states the [business interests they're protecting](). Like DeepMind's generous garden leave period, noncompete clauses typically last between six months and a year — but instead of getting paid to garden, per the former's logic, ex-employees just can't work for competitors for that length of time without risking [backlash from Google's army of lawyers](). Because noncompetes are [often signed alongside]() non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), we don't know exactly what DeepMind considers a "competitor" — but whatever its contracts stipulate, it's clearly bothersome enough to get its former staffers to speak out. "Who wants to sign you for starting in a year?" one ex-DeepMind-er told *BI*. "That's forever in AI." In an [X post from the end of March](), Nando de Freitas, a London-based former DeepMind director who now works at Microsoft offered a brash piece of advice: that people should not sign noncompetes at all. "Above all don’t sign these contracts," de Freitas wrote. "No American corporation should have that much power, especially in Europe. It’s abuse of power, which does not justify any end." It's not a bad bit of counsel, to be sure — but as with any other company, it's easy to imagine DeepMind simply choosing not to hire experts if they refuse to sign. **More on the world of AI:** [*Trump's Tariffs Are a Bruising Defeat for the AI Industry*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()