Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist, is walking away after 12 years to start his own AI startup

"Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist and one of the most influential figures in the field, is leaving the company to start a new AI venture, a Meta spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider. LeCun announced the move on Facebook, sharing that he is building a startup centered on his long-standing interest in world-model research. Meta will partner with LeCun on his new venture, a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider, but didn't reveal any details about the nature of the partnership."

"LeCun's departure comes during a period of instability inside Meta's AI organization. Over the past few months, Meta has hired dozens of top researchers and engineers from rivals and reorganized its AI efforts under the new Superintelligence Labs division, led by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. Tensions emerged within the newly formed team between the highly compensated new hires and the existing researchers, some of whom have threatened to quit, Business Insider previously reported."

"In August, the company made the biggest reorganization of its artificial intelligence operations to date, creating four distinct teams that focus on research, training, products, and infrastructure. This shift followed the company's pivot toward out-competing OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic on large-scale AI models. At the same time, researchers have cycled in and out of key roles, and Meta's Llama 4 release drew muted reactions internally and externally."

Yann LeCun, Meta's chief AI scientist, is leaving Meta to start a new AI venture focused on world-model research. Meta will partner with the new startup, though partnership details were not disclosed. The departure occurs amid instability in Meta's AI organization, which recently hired dozens of researchers and reorganized efforts under Superintelligence Labs led by Alexandr Wang. Meta restructured into four teams for research, training, products, and infrastructure while pivoting to compete with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic on large-scale models. Staff tensions, churn, and muted reactions to Llama 4 have marked the period. LeCun advocates JEPA over heavy reliance on large language models.

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