AI Pioneer Yann LeCun Set to Depart Meta for New Startup Venture
In a development that could significantly alter the AI landscape, Yann LeCun, Meta’s Vice President and Chief AI Scientist, is reportedly on the verge of exiting the company to establish his own startup. The esteemed 65-year-old Turing Award recipient and trailblazing researcher has reportedly revealed his impending departure to colleagues.
LeCun, recognized as one of the “founding fathers” of modern deep learning alongside Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, is already in preliminary fundraising discussions for a startup centered on “world models”. These are AI systems that cultivate an internal comprehension of their surroundings to simulate cause-and-effect scenarios, a markedly different approach from the large language models currently leading the industry.
His exit coincides with substantial organizational shifts at Meta. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has redirected the company’s AI strategy towards expedited commercial deployment, following concerns that Meta was lagging behind competitors such as OpenAI and Google. This restructuring involved the recruitment of 28-year-old Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to spearhead a new superintelligence division. LeCun will now report to Wang, as opposed to Chief Product Officer Chris Cox.
Source: TechCrunch