NotebookLM Creator Exits Google, Teases a Mysterious New Venture

After 5.5 years at Google, Raiza Martin, who led the NotebookLM team, took to Linkedin to share that she is leaving the company to start a new venture. Reflecting on her time at Google, she expressed pride in building NotebookLM – from concept to a product – which is now used by millions. 

“To everyone who supported NotebookLM’s journey – especially our early users who shaped the product with their feedback – thank you. Building alongside you has been the highlight of my time at Google,” she shared in her farewell post.

She shared she will be starting a new startup with colleagues Jason Spielman and Stephen Hughes. While she mentioned they are still in the early stages of building ‘something new’, more details are yet to be shared. Last month, Francois Chollet, the creator of Keras, announced his exit from the Google as well.

“There is a lot in store for NotebookLM on the horizon and I have so much confidence that this team and product will continue to delight millions more people in the future,” added Martin in her post. 

Launched in september, NotebookLM is built on Google’s Gemini 1.5 model and took over the internet for its unique use cases in content generation including its realistic voice and summarisation capabilities. Last week, Google launched new features to the product. 

Many in the industry even touted this as Google’s ChatGPT moment. In a podcast, Martin remarked how ChatGPT had been significant for her, so the comparision felt huge.

NotebookLM started as an experiment by Google Labs in July 2023. Even the product team agreed that they did not anticipate the success of its tool. In October, the “experiment” label was removed, and it transitioned into fully developed software within the Google community. A one of its kind innovation, NotebookLM gave rise to several AI podcasts like ElevenLabs’ GenFM and PlayAI’s PlayNote.