Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models'

Most of the folks on this topic are focused on Meta and Yann’s departure. But, I’m seeing something different.

This is the weirdest technology market that I’ve seen. Researchers are getting rewarded with VC money to try what remains a science experiment. That used to be a bad word and now that gets rewarded with billions of dollars in valuation.

That's been true for the last year or two, but it feels like we're at an inflection point. All of the announcements from OpenAI for the last couple of months have been product focused - Instant Checkout, AgentKit, etc. Anthropic seems 100% focused on Claude Code. We're not hearing as much about AGI/Superintelligence (thank goodness) as we were earlier this year, in fact the big labs aren't even talking much about their next model releases. The focus has pivoted to building products from existing models (and building massive data centers to support anticipated consumption).

Meta hiring researchers en masse at $100m+ pay packages is fairly new, as of this summer.

I don't know if that's indicative of the market as a whole though. Zuck just seems really gutted they fell behind with Llama 4.

A lot of them left in the first days on the job. I guess they saw what they were going to work on and peaced out. No one wants to work on AI slop and mental abuse of children on social media.

I don't understand how an intelligent person could accept a job offer from Facebook in 2025 and not understand what company they just agreed to work for.

Those people are intelligent, they’re just selfish and have no qualms over making money off the repugnant crap they’re doing.

In that case, how come they "left in the first days of the job" because "they saw what they were going to work on and peaced out"?