For context: this is pretty surprising, given the significant amount of independence Deepmind had within Google. So much so, in fact, that they tried for a long time to be spun off from Google: https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-unit-deepmind-triedand-f...
Yeah. DeepMind has sought more independence than they had, but now they have lost it completely. It seems there was an internal power struggle and Google won.
The people who want to do R&D disconnected from product dev should be leaving Google Deepmind. There's still a valuable role for them elsewhere and there will always been money to fund them. Doesn't mean that Google will suddenly be at a disadvantage as a result though.
One of the biggest liberties DeepMind had was a completely separate hiring process and pipeline than Google.
Their open positions mysteriously disappeared on November last year and they are still closed outside of specific senior roles and a very open ended "register your interest if you have a PhD".
Big loss for DeepMind if the separate pipeline is lost. Being able to hire for their priorities instead of whatever Google's hiring for is one of the reasons it was so successful.