Meta’s ambitious artificial superintelligence initiative appears to be facing early turbulence, as several employees, including long-time veterans and recent recruits, have left the company.
According to a report, many of those departing were experienced researchers and engineers responsible for building Meta’s core AI systems. Others were part of the newly formed Meta Superintelligence Lab (MSL), the division created to pursue CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of bringing personal superintelligence to everyone.
The exits come despite Meta investing billions of dollars into MSL and offering compensation packages worth hundreds of millions to attract talent from rivals like OpenAI and Google DeepMind. These pay scales have reportedly created tensions within the company, particularly among employees who were with Meta before its superintelligence drive.
A Meta spokesperson responded, saying: “Some attrition is normal for any organisation of this size. Most of these employees had been with the company for years, and we wish them the best […] During an intense recruiting process, some people will decide to stay in their current job rather than starting a new one. That’s normal.”
Recent departures include:
• Bert Maher, who worked at Meta for 12 years on AI tools such as PyTorch and Triton, is reportedly joining Anthropic.
• Tony Liu, an eight-year veteran who managed PyTorch GPU systems.
• Chi-Hao Wu, who spent five years at Meta, is joining Memories.ai as chief AI officer.
• Aram Markosyan, who worked on safety and fairness in large AI models and smart glasses.
• Chaya Nayak, a nine-year veteran and director of product management for generative AI, is joining OpenAI.
• Afroz Mohiuddin, who worked at Meta for just over a year, is also set to join OpenAI.
Other quick exits include AI researchers Avi Verma and Ethan Knight, who returned to OpenAI after less than a month at MSL, and Rishabh Agarwal, who joined Periodic Labs after five months. Ruben Mayer, brought in from Scale AI to help lead MSL, has also left after two months.
Earlier this year, Meta announced a $14.3 billion investment in a data-labelling partner, with former Scale AI chief Alexandr Wang tapped to co-lead the MSL team, which now faces a challenging start.
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