Agreed. I'm seeing multiple other comments here suggesting DeepMind was somehow a waste when they have done a lot of very impressive research. "Solving" protein folding. Retrieval transformers. Novel solutions to math problems using ML? What about beating fucking Lee Sedol in go? No? None of that matters? C'mon.
Those are towering achievements that don't add to Google as a business. It was an important part of Google's reputation, but now that reputation is in the mud as Microsoft and OpenAI become king in the eyes of the public.
Arguably none of that made a comparable difference to the life of a common man as ChatGPT did. It's necessary to do fundamental research, but imperative to maintain focus on delivering real world value to real world people.
