There can't be many events where Neelie Kroes, vice-president of the European commission, rubs shoulders with Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon, or Google bon vivant Eric Schmidt with the reliably delightful Grayson Perry. For the one percenters who get an invitation to Founders Forum, the event is like the Davos of the tech industry. For an observer, the atmosphere combines the congratulatory backslapping of intense power network with an undercurrent of feisty rivalry. It's fascinating to watch.
Secrets are told, processes explained, deals done late at night over very expensive drinks. There are modest panel discussions (not everyone goes; the best discussions are alwaysin the corridors, near the bar or clustered under an accommodating willow tree in the grounds), but even these sessions open the kimono a little wider than usual.
There have been few recent tech acquisitions more intriguing than that of DeepMind, the British artificial intelligence firm bought by Google for about £400m in January. Much of the astonishment was because so few people in the industry had even heard of DeepMind, although founder Demis Hassabis had a reputation for brilliance.
Post-deal, Google is still letting Hassabis wander around in the real world and taking his phenomenal brain with him – despite the evident risks of him leaking intrigue, insights and intel about the future of machine learning that Google might prefer to keep to itself.
"Why don't we have robots that can tidy the house or clean up after the kids?" asked Hassabis. "It's not because we're not mechanically capable – there are robots that could do that. But the problem is that every house, every kitchen, is different. You couldn't pre-program individual machines, so it has to learn in the environment it finds itself in."
Hassabis grasped the kimono: discussions with Google meandered for two years, he told the audience of suits (Grayson and Simon being sadly absent at this point), but were triggered by a casual chat between casual billionaires on a casual private jet ride somewhere between wherever billionaires like to fly each other. One of DeepMind's investors is Tesla founder Elon Musk, a remarkable overachiever even by Silicon Valley standards, who has variously created luxury, high-performance electric cars, designed a high-speed, pressurised transport system and founded a space travel company. Despite $65m of investment from him in their first two years, DeepMind stayed secretive.
"We're from the UK, so we didn't realise who was connected in the Valley, or that Elon and Larry [Google co-founder Larry Page] were best buddies. We got a call from Luke Nosek on Elon's private jet at 4am UK time, who said that Larry had started asking about artificial intelligence and Elon said 'You should check out this company in London'. Then Luke said 'Larry's taking notes!' I was thinking that someone with a $300bn-$400bn company doesn't take notes unless it's going to get actioned."
What followed was a year of discussions with Google that became more protracted as more lawyers and the corporate development department got involved.
At one point, he said, there were 20 lawyers on one conference call. "The complexity of getting all those ducks in a row is at the limits of what is humanly possible, plus all the 'poker playing' with corporate development – and meanwhile running your business."
Help speeding up the process came in the unlikely form of another tech giant f ounder, who got wind of what DeepMind was doing. It wasn't the bidding war that DeepMind (and its 75 staff) were interested in, but negotiating to get the best terms that would allow DeepMind to control its own mission. Its research was all based on an approach in artificial intelligence that Google didn't have. "Most people start with language, but we start with sensory experience," said Hassabis. "We collected the world's best team. And Larry told us he'd always thought of Google as an artificial intelligence company."
That insight itself is enough to inspire the recalibration of the hundreds of millions of businesses and billions of consumers who have become dependent on Google. If you thought Google was an advertiser, or a search engine, or a video platform, or a news service, or a shopping tool, you're right. But the Google of the future tailors all its services using technology that learns about its users. Today, that customisation looks like the Google Now app, but the future has a habit of turning up pretty quickly in this part of the world.
Wannabe entrepreneurs looking for tips from Hassabis would be hard pressed; be a former prodigy computing genius, get Elon Musk as an investor and engineer a casual mention to an artificial intelligence-hunting Google founder next time they hang out. All in a day's work for the tech elite, in whose hands our futures rest.