Meta is about to lose one of its most prestigious AI minds. Yann LeCun, the company's chief AI scientist and Turing Award winner, is planning to leave in the coming months to launch his own startup focused on world models, according to anonymous sources speaking to the Financial Times. The departure comes as Meta scrambles to reorganize its AI efforts after falling behind rivals like OpenAI and Google.
Meta just lost a critical piece of its AI brain trust. Yann LeCun, the company's chief AI scientist and one of the most respected figures in artificial intelligence, is planning his exit to build his own startup focused on world models, according to Financial Times sources.
The timing couldn't be worse for Meta. LeCun's departure comes as the company desperately tries to catch up with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic in the AI race. The Turing Award winner and NYU professor is already in talks to raise capital for his venture, which would continue his research into world models - AI systems that develop internal understanding of their environment to simulate cause-and-effect scenarios.
World models represent one of AI's most promising frontiers. These systems go beyond current large language models by building comprehensive mental maps of how the world works, allowing them to predict outcomes and plan actions. Google DeepMind has been advancing this research with its Genie models, while startup World Labs is also pushing boundaries in this space.
But LeCun's exit exposes deeper problems brewing inside Meta's AI organization. The company has been in full reorganization mode since CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that Meta was falling behind in the AI arms race. In June, Meta made a massive bet by investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI and bringing on Scale's CEO Alexandr Wang to run a new division called Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL).
The shake-up hasn't gone smoothly. Sources told TechCrunch in August that the changes have created chaos within Meta's AI unit. New talent poached from competitors - over 50 engineers and researchers - are frustrated with big company bureaucracy, while Meta's existing generative AI team has seen its scope dramatically limited.
