Yann LeCun, who was the chief AI scientist at Meta, recently spoke openly about his departure from the company. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said that his relationship with Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, had deteriorated because of the company's new direction. LeCun left in November 2025 to found his own startup. According to him, Zuckerberg hired Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old co-founder of Scale AI, to lead the new Superintelligence Labs. Meta invested $14 billion in Scale AI, approximately CZK 315 billion, acquiring a 49% stake. Wang became LeCun's superior despite having no experience developing or designing artificial intelligence models.
LeCun described Wang as "young" and "inexperienced." He said that although Wang is a quick learner and knows what he does not know, he lacks knowledge of how research is conducted. "He has no experience with research or how research is practiced, what would attract or repel a researcher," LeCun explained. Although Wang was briefly his boss following the reorganization at Meta, LeCun emphasized that researchers cannot be ordered around. "You don't tell a researcher what to do. And certainly not a researcher like me," he added.
The failure of the Llama 4 model
LeCun also spoke about problems with the Llama 4 model, which Meta released in April 2025. According to him, Zuckerberg pushed the team to stick to "safe and proven" approaches instead of innovative ideas. This led the team to "tweak" some test results, which angered Zuckerberg. "Mark was really angry and lost trust in everyone involved," LeCun said. As a result, Zuckerberg sidelined the entire GenAI organization, which focused on generative artificial intelligence.
LeCun predicts that these changes will cause even more AI employees to leave Meta. According to him, Zuckerberg remained receptive to LeCun's views on the future of artificial intelligence, but the new people he hired are focused primarily on large language models (LLMs). LeCun considers these models a "dead end" for achieving superintelligence. Instead, he advocates for "world models" that understand the physical world. "I'm sure a lot of people at Meta, perhaps including Alex, would prefer that I didn't tell the world that LLMs are a dead end for superintelligence," he said. But he added that he would not change his opinion just because someone wanted him to.
LeCun's new startup
After leaving Meta, LeCun founded Advanced Machine Intelligence Labs, a company focused on advanced machine intelligence. The startup is targeting a valuation of $3 billion, approximately CZK 67.5 billion. LeCun serves as its executive chairman, not its CEO. "I'm a scientist, a visionary. I can inspire people to work on interesting things. I'm pretty good at judging which technology will or won't work. But I can't be a CEO. I'm too disorganized for that, and also too old!" he explained.
LeCun argues that large language models are too limited and that a different approach is needed to achieve real progress in artificial intelligence. His new company is focused specifically on these alternatives. Although Zuckerberg supported LeCun's ideas, the new hires at Meta are, according to him, "completely focused on LLMs." LeCun says this is causing the company to lose talented people who are seeking other paths in artificial intelligence.
Additional source: businessinsider.com
