Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, is making a big bet. Unfortunately, we’ve learned that he’s planning to leave the tech giant for good in the coming months to launch his own startup. This decision comes at a critical juncture for Meta. The firm is just as hungry to redefine its strategy for AI creation as it is starting to get out-flanked by competitors including OpenAI and Google.
LeCun, who serves as a professor at New York University and is a senior researcher at Meta’s Fundamental AI Research Lab (FAIR), has been critical of how AI technology is currently marketed. His skepticism reflects a growing concern within the industry regarding the direction of AI advancements and their implications.
Rather than jumping to regulate AI systems vastly more intelligent than us, LeCun believes we should develop a blueprint design for a system at least smarter than a house cat. He notes that this essential foundational work is key to accelerating AI development.
During that period while working at Meta, LeCun produced some of the most impactful research of his career. His immense contributions to the field were recognized with computing’s highest honor, the A.M. Turing Award. According to new reporting, much of his legacy work has failed to stay a step ahead of faster, more nimble models created by competitors. Fierce criticism has recently grown over Meta’s use of AI. This move came on the heels of poor sales of its first AI model family, called Llama 4.
Following this pressure, as well as fears over being left behind by rivals, Meta has adopted an open approach to AI development. The company is now aggressively pursuing new ways and technologies to get its competitive advantage back. LeCun’s exit will likely only make this transition more difficult, as he has been a powerful advocate for this change from within the organization.
LeCun and Faissola are actively in the midst of an oversubscribed Series A round. His ultimate aim is to extend his research on world models. This new focus is very much in line with his career-long efforts to push forward the theoretical underpinnings of artificial intelligence.
As LeCun heads into this new chapter, all of us who care about the direction of the tech industry will be closely observing what happens next. His unexpected exit not only signals a big shift for Meta but stirs a flood of questions about where artificial intelligence is headed.