I implemented neural networks before the advent of the good python frameworks. It sucked. And CNNs existed for decades before AlexNet. Honestly, the software and hardware engineers are the real heroes of the deep learning revolution.

By way of analogy, David Heinemeier Hansson didn't invent the webapp or even the MVC design pattern. But Ruby on Rails did change the way webapps were built, and enabled a bunch of stuff that wouldn't have been possible otherwise (or, at least, would've taken longer and been more expensive). Lots of websites were built because of Ruby on Rails that probably wouldn't have been built otherwise, even if people would've kept on doing the web thing regardless. We can say the same thing about lisps, about linux, and about a lot of other software infrastructure.

Any high schooler who's capable of learning python and can afford a gaming desktop can build and train a neural network. That's pretty amazing, and definitely wouldn't be the case without computation graph frameworks.

I've never worked for Google or with Jeff, and I'm not a huge fan of the ad tech industry, although I don't understand why either of those things should matter.