Yann LeCun — widely known as one of the “godfathers” of modern machine learning — has officially announced that he is leaving Meta to start his own tech venture. The 65-year-old confirmed the long-rumoured move in a LinkedIn post after spending 12 years shaping the company’s research ecosystem.
LeCun joined Meta (then Facebook) in 2013 as the founding director of FAIR, the company’s research arm. He later went on to serve as Meta’s Chief Scientist for seven years.
Why Yann LeCun Is Leaving Meta
Reports about LeCun’s planned exit had circulated for months. His departure is linked to structural changes inside Meta as well as differences in direction.
Recently, Meta reorganised its research and product teams, shifting its emphasis toward commercial applications and product-driven innovation. A new division—Superintelligence Labs, led by 28-year-old Alexandr Wang—was created to accelerate this shift. With the restructuring, LeCun began reporting to Wang instead of chief product officer Chris Cox.
Another major change occurred in October when Meta laid off 600 employees, many from FAIR, the very division LeCun helped build. To many insiders, this signaled a reduction in the independence and influence that FAIR once held within the company.
LeCun’s Different Vision for the Future of Machine Intelligence
LeCun has long held a distinct perspective on the future of intelligent systems. While tech giants continue pouring resources into large language models, he has repeatedly argued that these models alone cannot lead to truly capable intelligent systems.
He believes the next breakthrough lies in Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI) — systems that can understand the real world, learn persistently, reason logically, and plan long sequences of actions.
LeCun’s New Startup and Its Mission
In his announcement, LeCun revealed that his new startup will be dedicated to advancing the AMI research program he has been developing with colleagues at FAIR, NYU, and other institutions.
“The goal of the startup is to bring about the next big revolution — systems that understand the physical world, have persistent memory, can reason, and can plan complex action sequences,” he wrote.
Despite his exit, LeCun confirmed that Meta will continue to partner with his new venture. He also expressed gratitude to Mark Zuckerberg, Andrew Bosworth, Chris Cox, and Mike Schroepfer for their continued support of FAIR over the years.
A New Chapter in the Tech World
LeCun’s departure marks a major shift in the global technology landscape. As a Turing Award winner and a pioneer of deep learning, his next move will be closely watched. His new startup aims to push the boundaries of machine intelligence beyond today’s commercially-driven approaches, opening the door for what could be the next major evolution in advanced computing.
