Google's Top Quantum Scientist Explains in Detail Why He Resigned
Google's Top Quantum Scientist Explains In Detail Why He Resigned
Professor John Martinis                           University of California Santa Barbara
The news that Professor John Martinis had resigned from Google sent ripples through the entire quantum community. A few days after the announcement, I was on two previously scheduled calls with quantum executives and a call with another quantum CEO. Each was as baffled and as curious about Professor Martinis' departure from Google as I was.


I had read a few quotes attributed to Professor Martinis as the reason he resigned. Somehow the remarks seemed to lack enough  justification for such a big move on his part. I thought more detail was needed, and Professor Martinis agreed to clarify the record.

We are in an era of quantum experimentation and development. There are a handful of quantum scientists today that I believe will be historical figures a hundred years from now. John Martinis is one of those people. He has made monumental contributions to quantum computing, including handing Google the title to the historic achievement of quantum supremacy.


For those reasons, instead of an article with a few quotes by him, I decided to publish the full transcript of our conversation, and Professor Martinis gave his permission. In the interview, he describes details of his complex situation and why he ultimately decided to resign.  Additionally, you'll find many nuggets and surprises in the  interview.

Small parts of the transcript have been edited for clarity and I have entered notes where appropriate. My original plan was to provide a summary of my thoughts and conclusions. However, Professor Martinis was completely open about his relationship with the hardware group and with his manager, Hartmut Neven, founder of the Google Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab. After reviewing the transcript, I  felt everything was said that needed to be said. All my questions were answered. I will say this: Professor Martinis has no ill feelings toward the people who worked for him or toward Hartmut Neven. He expressed only respect for them.

After a few introductions and small talk, we started the discussion:
Paul Smith-Goodson (PSG):

I was very curious about the reason you left Google. The quote that was attributed to you as the reason didn't make sense to me. So maybe we could start at the beginning for some background.


Professor Martinis:
Sure.
PSG:
You and your group went to Google in 2014. Is that right?
Professor Martinis:
Yes, that's right. I was a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and we had government funding and were doing quite well. Google got interested and my group and I came over to work at Google, basically because we both wanted to build a useful quantum computer. 
PSG:
How many people were in your group that went over with you?
Professor Martinis:
I think at the time it was in the teens. It was a good-sized group, but not everyone came over at first. For most of the students, they came to Google after they graduated with their PhD. 
PSG:
I did a count and it appears that you and your group published about 200 papers while you were at Google.
Professor Martinis:
While at Google, that seems high, but I have published a large number of papers in my career and a lot of them on quantum. I was also involved in other research. I actually started with quantum computing when I was a PhD student way back in the mid-eighties at UC Berkeley.
PSG:
What was the agreement when you first went to Google as far as maintaining a leadership role?
Professor Martinis:
So, of course I had a leadership role at UC Santa Barbara, and I was quite concerned about changing that. When I moved to Google, Hartmut [Neven] was running the project. He had started a quantum project [at google] and he's the one who wanted to hire me. I was the head of the hardware group and he was head of the whole quantum AI group. So that's the way we started.
PSG:
You did some amazing work while you were at Google. You handed them the title to quantum supremacy. There was some controversy, but it was an important milestone, and you did it.
Professor Martinis:
We talked publicly about quantum supremacy for a couple of years and how we were going to do it. I think a lot of people thought it was a pretty bold milestone, but we were excited about the challenge. I thought the later controversy drummed up by IBM was a kind of fake news. But in the end, it worked out okay, as controversy brought attention. 
PSG:
As it turned out, if you'd used a few more qubits, it would have been far beyond the reach of any classical computer and there would have been no question about its validity.
Professor Martinis:
Yes, that’s correct. Scott Aaronson at UT Austin wrote a piece in the New York Times describing the impact. You can quibble about details, but the strangest part is that IBM said that the Summit computer was able to do this, but it was basically a white paper, and they [IBM] actually didn't run a program.  Of course, if you're going to claim something for experimental physics or computer science, you should actually run programs. I've mentioned it in my talks, and physicists understand what's going on. In the end, I hope this motivated people to just read the paper to find out what we did.
PSG:
When did you first sense there was a problem with your relationship at Google with Hartmut Neven?
Professor Martinis:
This is a complex situation, but I can outline it for you. There has been tension for several years now, but it mostly has been with the hardware group. It started around the time we first proposed quantum supremacy.   To explain the tension, you should understand that my personal research style tends to be very intently focused. For example, with the quantum supremacy experiment, I focused on doing the experiment because I thought it would be a milestone and very challenging, but doable. I thought it would strongly focus the group on important problems. I think it was hard on people in the group to focus on quantum supremacy because it meant they couldn't work on other things they wanted to do, and most importantly, we could fail. And it seems tension comes with focus. I could also describe this more philosophically.
Note: At this point, Professor Martinis asked me if I had read Peter Thiel's book, Zero to One. Thiel was a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir. He explained that Peter Thiel defines personality styles as either a definite optimist or indefinite optimist. Professor Martinis considers himself to be a definite optimist. One quote from Thiel's book seems to mirror his thinking: “…a definite person determines the one best thing to do and then does it." I admitted that I started the book but failed to  finish it.
Professor Martinis:
It's okay. Anyway, he [Peter Thiel] says that most people in the US are indefinite optimists. And everyone says, oh yeah, we can build a quantum computer, but everyone is doing very general research on it, but with indefinite goals. My view is, I definitely want to create a quantum computer with some particular design. I saw the quantum supremacy experiment and I thought let's focus on this and let's get it to work. So, there's a natural conflict because it's very unusual to be a definite optimist. As Peter Thiel points out in the book, most people aren't this way. And I think my success in physics is because of this trait.
PSG:
So, your intense focus created tension in the group?
Professor Martinis:
My personality is to intensely focus on some goal.  I think this was hard on the group. Once we got quantum supremacy to work, and we didn't need such intense focus, people naturally wanted more independence. 
Also, leaders of the group came from UC Santa Barbara, and it's very natural to want to leave your advisor and form your own group and be independent. Hartmut saw that too, and he is much more of an indefinite optimist than I am. Seeing all the tension, they [the group] and management thought it would be better if I wasn't leading the project anymore. Three people in the project would be co-leaders and I would be advising.
PSG:
How did you feel about that?
Professor Martinis:
Initially, I thought it wasn't going to work for me. But it was clear that's what everyone wanted. We went ahead and I tried it for nine months. During those nine months I was productive, as I invented a way to scale up the qubits and solved some wiring technology. I was doing my job, but I felt uncomfortable about the direction the project was going on the five to ten-year time scale. After some other bad events happened, I just decided that this was no longer working, especially with my personality of definite optimism. Google no longer seemed like a good fit. Things were going well, and the group could definitely figure out what to do on their own. They're smart. But I can use my skills to do something even more productive. Does that make sense?
PSG:
Yes, I completely understand. What was competing for control of the group at the time? Was it anything in particular or was it just that the group wanted more freedom?
Professor Martinis:
Yes. I'll give you a specific example that happened last year. It was very difficult for me at the time. 
When wiring a qubit system, it is very important to figure it out in a scalable, cost-sensitive way. I had been developing some new technology that was quite far along. I was quite proud of various inventions, as solutions were somewhat tricky, and you had to think very carefully about how to build a system. Wiring is funny as it is something that everyone thinks they can do, but it's subtle. But one theorist, who did not have experimental experience, felt that he knew how to do wiring better than me. We talked and I said look, this isn't going to work, and you should not be doing it. But he didn't accept no and kept working on it.
This went on and on, so I started talking to Hartmut about it, explaining that it didn't make sense. We have a relatively small group and we don't have an abundance of  resources. And I have it covered, so we should stop this other program. But Hartmut didn’t back me up and wanted to go ahead and try both. 
I guess I just didn't handle that very well. I was the lead of the hardware group, but I couldn't stop a project that didn't make any sense to me.
PSG:
Did you feel like you were losing control?
Professor Martinis:
More precisely, I had already lost control.  I wasn't really leading the hardware group, but of course still felt responsibility, like getting the quantum supremacy experiment to work. In the end, Hartmut and I just disagreed on what to do. But he's the boss, so it’s his decision.  I think this whole year-long process made me very uncomfortable, and I just couldn't handle it because I have been making hardware decisions for a very long time. I think I know the best way to make technology work, in a definite direction.  
PSG:
You were making good progress toward increasing the number of qubits. I think one of the quotes I read said that you were on the path to making a quantum computer with a few hundred to a thousand qubits.
Professor Martinis:
Yes, we have this plan, and even one for a much larger quantum computer. As a definite optimist, I liked that we had a definite plan that made sense to the group. After the quantum supremacy results, google management was very supportive, so everything was going great.
PSG:
It sounds like everything was fine at that point.
Professor Martinis:
Yes, but I was not very happy because I disagreed with some important decisions. I had many talks with Hartmut about it, especially about the leadership role. I thought it would be the most reliable path to follow my expertise, since I have had a successful history. 
And in the end, I felt that the group had a good plan, and they know what they're doing. They're all very smart, they're going to be happy doing it their way. And I can go off and do science in the way I know best. I want to help the world of quantum computing in a way that makes sense to me.  
I'm sad because I really thought we really could build something amazing together, but you know, things don't always work out the way you want. You just have to figure out the best way forward.
PSG:
When you get in a situation like that, it's a lot easier if you just step away. I assume you're going to keep working on quantum projects.
Professor Martinis:
I've had a lot of inquiries from people. And I still would like to build a quantum computer with this definite-optimistic approach. But this requires a good amount of funding, so I’ll see if it’s possible. 
One idea is to work with other qubits groups, who are making different qubits, to figure out how they can scale up and build a large quantum computer. Because I have an example with superconducting qubits that I now understand well, I hope to use those ideas for these other approaches. So, this might be a great opportunity. 
PSG:
Would you ever go back to Google if the situation changed?
Professor Martinis:
Yes, I would. We would obviously want to discuss all of this. Maybe we just need right now some social distancing. I did like working for Google and Hartmut, and maybe there is some way to make everyone happy. I wish them the best. They're a great team.
PSG:
Will there be anything coming out from Google that you worked on?
Professor Martinis:
There's going to be some really nice papers coming out using the quantum-supremacy Sycamore chip. Maybe not be quite so impactful [as quantum supremacy], but they are really going to advance the field a lot in applications as a cloud quantum computer. There should be more great results coming out of the group in the next few years.
PSG:
Did all of your original group stay with Google when you left?
Professor Martinis:
Oh yes. Everyone is still working there, which is great. They will have more independence and say in planning their project, so I am happy for them.  
PSG:
When do you think we'll see a useful superconducting quantum computer? Can we do it in the next five years?
Professor Martinis:
Hartmut has talked about this, so I can explain some more. The Google plan is roughly to build a million-qubit system in about ten years, with sufficiently low errors to do error correction. Then at that point you will have enough error-corrected logical qubits that you can run useful, powerful algorithms that you now can't solve on a classical supercomputer. And maybe even at a few hundred qubits, with lower errors, it may be possible to do something special purpose. As a definite optimist, I’m excited that they know what to do with both algorithms and hardware.
PSG:
Well, that's all my questions. I really appreciate your time. Is there anything I didn't ask that you would like to say?
Professor Martinis:
Oh, I'm just going to say that technically the group at Google is doing great. They have a good plan. They have really good scientists there. And I'm excited that they'll be able to make progress and push this forward. I wish them the best.
PSG:
Well, I think that's it. Thank you for your time.
Professor Martinis:
Okay. Thank you. It was nice talking to you. I enjoyed it. This has been a good conversation.

End of Transcript

Note: Moor Insights & Strategy writers and editors may have contributed to this article. 

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