Yann LeCun Exits Meta to Start New AI Venture After Firm Cuts 600 Jobs

Artificial intelligence pioneer Yann LeCun is set to leave his role as Meta’s Chief AI Scientist at the end of the year to build a new startup focused on next-generation AI systems. His departure arrives just as Meta begins cutting hundreds of AI roles and reshapes its long-term strategy for advanced AI research.

Yann LeCun’s Exit Marks a Turning Point for Meta

Yann LeCun, one of the world’s most influential AI researchers and a central figure in Meta’s AI ecosystem for more than a decade, announced that he will be stepping away from the company. LeCun joined Facebook (now Meta) in 2013 and played an instrumental role in establishing the Facebook AI Research (FAIR) division, which later evolved into a major research arm within Meta.

While LeCun stepped back from directing FAIR in 2018, he continued to serve as Meta’s Chief AI Scientist, guiding long-term research initiatives and advocating for open, publicly accessible AI development.

A New AI Startup With Ambitious Goals

In his announcement, LeCun revealed plans to build a startup dedicated to developing more advanced forms of artificial intelligence. The upcoming venture aims to create AI systems capable of:

• Understanding physical environments

• Maintaining long-term memory

• Reasoning in complex scenarios

• Planning multi-step actions

His vision points toward building AI that goes beyond current large language models and tackles deeper challenges surrounding intelligence, autonomy, and long-term reasoning.

LeCun stated that Meta will partner with the new venture, suggesting ongoing collaboration even after his exit. Some research efforts will align with Meta’s commercial goals, while others may follow independent scientific directions.

Meta’s AI Layoffs and Strategic Shift

LeCun’s decision comes shortly after Meta began reducing its AI workforce, cutting nearly 600 AI positions across teams this fall. These job cuts reflect a broader shift within the company, which has been aggressively redirecting resources toward commercial AI initiatives and long-term superintelligence projects.

In June, Meta invested more than $14.3 billion in data and infrastructure partnership with AI data company Scale. Its CEO, Alexandr Wang, was recruited to help guide the company’s next stage of AI development, emphasising a more competitive approach against OpenAI, Google, and other industry players.

This shift marks a clear departure from Meta’s earlier focus on foundational AI research that did not always have immediate product applications — a domain where LeCun played a major influence.

LeCun’s Longstanding Views on Modern AI

Yann LeCun has consistently voiced skepticism about the current generation of large language models, including those powering popular chatbots like ChatGPT. While acknowledging their usefulness, he has argued that these systems lack true understanding and cannot represent the pathway to human-level intelligence.

His belief in open-source AI has also shaped much of Meta’s recent work, especially the release of Llama models, which made Meta a leader in the open AI ecosystem. This approach has drawn both support from developers and concerns from AI safety experts who warn about potential misuse.

A Legacy of Innovation

Beyond Meta, LeCun continues to serve as a part-time professor at New York University, where he has been teaching since 2003. His contributions to machine learning date back decades, including pioneering work at AT&T Bell Labs, where he helped develop early neural network systems capable of reading and interpreting text in digitized images.

In 2019, he received the prestigious Turing Award, often dubbed the “Nobel Prize of computing,” along with fellow AI researchers Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton. This trio helped establish deep learning as the dominant approach in modern AI.

Conclusion

Yann LeCun’s departure from Meta signals both a personal new chapter and a significant shift for the company’s AI landscape. His new startup aims to tackle deeper scientific challenges in artificial intelligence, exploring capabilities that today’s AI systems cannot yet achieve. As Meta moves toward commercially driven superintelligence projects, LeCun’s independent venture could help shape the next wave of research-focused innovation in the field.