PANews reported on November 11th, citing the Financial Times, that Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, is planning to leave the social media giant to start his own startup, as Mark Zuckerberg seeks to radically overhaul the company's AI operations. According to sources familiar with the matter, LeCun, a Turing Award winner considered one of the pioneers of modern AI, has informed colleagues that he will be leaving the Silicon Valley conglomerate in the coming months. One source indicated that the French-American scientist is also in the early stages of fundraising for his new venture capital investment. LeCun's departure marks the latest in a series of departures, leadership reshuffles, and organizational restructurings at Meta in a turbulent year. In May, Joelle Pineau, VP of AI Research, left the company and recently joined the Canadian AI startup Cohere. Last month, the company also laid off approximately 600 employees in its AI research division to cut costs, eliminate bureaucracy, and release products faster.


