Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind, is often portrayed in romantic narratives as a genius who only bows to truth, not money, but this interpretation is wrong. Hassabis started playing chess at age 4, reached grandmaster level at 13, and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024. After winning, he told Sebastian Mallaby, "I wouldn't trade this for any amount of money," adding, "Now I want a second one." In 2013, DeepMind was running out of funds, and Hassabis was maneuvering between Google and Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg offered more favorable terms than Google. Hassabis went to Zuckerberg's home for dinner and deliberately diverted the conversation from AI to emerging fields such as VR and 3D printing to observe his reaction. Zuckerberg was equally excited about every new technology. Hassabis said: "Facebook offered a higher price, but what I wanted was someone who truly believed that AI was more important than everything else." This was a test of a top chess player, evaluating the buyer's "cognitive focus" to lock in future autonomy. What kept the "crazy dream with zero revenue" running for eight years was a complete set of institutional arrangements, from staged option logic of financing to defensive strategic moats.