Artificial intelligence pioneer Yann LeCun, a 65-year-old Nobel laureate, is leaving Meta within the coming months to launch his own startup focused on developing “world models” – AI systems that learn from video and spatial data. LeCun’s departure marks a significant turning point for both Meta and the broader AI industry as he pursues his vision for next-generation AI systems.
LeCun joined Facebook in 2013 as the founding director of Fundamental AI Research, but now plans to create a new startup with an emphasis on developing more advanced AI systems. He has been critical of large language models, arguing they will never achieve human-level reasoning and planning capabilities.
This move comes at a time when Meta is undergoing significant changes to its AI strategy. The company recently invested $14.3 billion in data-labeling firm Scale AI and brought on a new division called Meta Superintelligence Labs. LeCun’s departure reflects a deeper strategic divide between the two parties, with LeCun pursuing a more research-driven approach to AI development.
LeCun is known for his work on convolutional neural networks, which revolutionized computer vision in the 1980s. He received the ACM Turing Award in 2019 alongside Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio for breakthroughs that made deep neural networks critical components of modern computing.
The shift at Meta has not been without controversy, with multiple former employees describing FAIR as “dying a slow death” due to prioritization of commercially focused AI teams over long-term research. LeCun’s departure signals a fundamental disagreement about the path to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and the role of research in an industry driven by competitive product timelines.
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Source: https://fortune.com/2025/11/11/who-is-yann-lecun-career-meta-ai-chief-scientist-nyu-turing