Yann LeCun is departing Meta to establish a startup focused on developing artificial intelligence systems capable of understanding physical environments and performing complex planning tasks. The 65-year-old scientist, who received the Turing Award for his contributions to deep learning alongside Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, founded the company's FAIR research division after joining in 2013.
Meta will maintain a partnership with the new venture despite internal tensions within its artificial intelligence operations. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg recruited Alexandr Wang from Scale AI for $14.5 billion to serve as chief AI officer after the Llama 4 model release disappointed developers. Sources indicate LeCun had minimal interaction with Wang or the recently formed TBD Labs unit, which absorbed work previously conducted by FAIR researchers.
The company eliminated 600 positions from its Superintelligence Labs division, including members of the research team LeCun established. His departure follows years of budget reductions affecting the unit he created, with the scientist advocating for world models that comprehend three-dimensional spaces rather than focusing solely on language processing systems.
Meta will maintain a partnership with the new venture despite internal tensions within its artificial intelligence operations. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg recruited Alexandr Wang from Scale AI for $14.5 billion to serve as chief AI officer after the Llama 4 model release disappointed developers. Sources indicate LeCun had minimal interaction with Wang or the recently formed TBD Labs unit, which absorbed work previously conducted by FAIR researchers.
The company eliminated 600 positions from its Superintelligence Labs division, including members of the research team LeCun established. His departure follows years of budget reductions affecting the unit he created, with the scientist advocating for world models that comprehend three-dimensional spaces rather than focusing solely on language processing systems.
