Yann LeCun to depart Meta and launch AI startup focused on 'world models' • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by brandall10 » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 1:43 PM UTC

DebtDeflation wrote: post #285

mehulashah wrote: post #277

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 the…

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.

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

#302

Post by anotherd1p » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 1:43 PM UTC

throwaw12 wrote: post #72

xuancanh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In industry research, someone in a chief position like LeCun should know how to balance long-term research with short-term projects. However, for whatever reason, he consistently shows hostility toward LLMs and engineering projects, even though Llama and PyTorch are two of the most influential projects from Meta AI. His attitude doesn’t really match what is expected from a Chief position at a product company like Fac…

I would pose a question differently, under his leadership did Meta achieve good outcome? If the answer is yes, then better to keep him, because he has already proved himself and you can win in the long-term. With Meta's pockets, you can always create a new department specifically for short-term projects. If the answer is no, then nothing to discuss here.

then we should ask: will Meta come close enough to the fulfillment of the promises made, or will it keep achieving good enough outcomes?

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

#303

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 1:44 PM UTC

mehulashah wrote: post #277

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.

[deleted]

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

#304

Post by nashashmi » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 1:44 PM UTC

With this incredible AI talent market, I feel like capitalism and ego forms to make an acid burning away anything of social and structural value. This used to be the case with CS tech talent before (before being replaced with no-code tools). And now we see this kind of instability in the AI market.

We need another illegal Steve Jobs style freeze on talent theft (/s or I get downvoted to oblivion).

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

#305

Post by matt3D » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 1:45 PM UTC

littlestymaar wrote: post #239

re-thc wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2 Trillion dollars in Capex to get code generators with hallucinations You assume that's the only use of it. And are people not using these code generators? Is this an issue with a lost generation that forgot what Capex is? We've moved from Capex to Opex and now the notion is lost, is it? You can hire an army of software developers but can't build hardware. Is it better when everyone buys DeepSeek or a non-US versi…

Deepseek somehow didn't need $2T to happen.

I think the argument can be made that Deepseek is a state sponsored needle looking to pop another states bubble.

If Deepseek is free it undermines the value of LLMs, so the value of these US companies is mainly speculation/FOMO over AGI.

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

#306

Post by cantor_S_drug » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 1:45 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #59

tedsanders wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working toward AGI. I hope AGI can be used to automate work and make life easier for people.

How old are you? That's what they've been selling us for the past 50 years and nothing has changed, all the productivity gain was pocketed by the elite

Here's my prediction : The rapid progress of AI will make money as an accounting practice irrelevant. Take the concept of "Future is already here but unevenly distributed." When we will have true abundance, what the elites will target is the convex hull of progress, they want to be in control of leading edge / leading wavefront and its direction and who has access to resources and decision making. In such a scenario of abundance, populace will have access to iPhone 50 but the Elites will have access to iPhone 500. i.e. uneven distribution. Elites would like to directly control which resource gets allocated to which projects. Elon is already doing that with his immense clout. This implies we would have a sort of multidimensional resource based economy.

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

#307

Post by _the_inflator » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 1:45 PM UTC

xuancanh wrote: post #65

sebmellen wrote: post #2

Making LeCun report to Wang was the most boneheaded move imaginable. But… I suppose Zuckerberg knows what he wants, which is AI slopware and not truly groundbreaking foundation models.

In industry research, someone in a chief position like LeCun should know how to balance long-term research with short-term projects. However, for whatever reason, he consistently shows hostility toward LLMs and engineering projects, even though Llama and PyTorch are two of the most influential projects from Meta AI. His attitude doesn’t really match what is expected from a Chief position at a product company like Fac…

I totally agree. He appeared to act against his employer and actively undermined Meta's effort to attract talent by his behavior visible on X.

And I stopped reading him, since he - in my opinion - trashed on autopilot everything 99% did - and these 99% were already beyond the two standard deviation of greatness.

It is even more highly problematic if you have absolutely no results eg products to back your claims.

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

#308

Post by anthonybsd » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 1:46 PM UTC

tinco wrote: post #10

gnaman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is also not very interested in LLMs, and that seems to be Zuck's top priority.

Yeah I think LeCun is underestimating the impact that LLM's and Diffusion models are going to have, even considering the huge impact they're already having. That's no problem as I'm sure whatever LeCun is working on is going to be amazing as well, but an enterprise like Facebook can't have their top researcher work on risky things when there's surefire paths to success still available.

> Facebook can't have their top researcher work on risky things when there's surefire paths to success still available.

How did you determine that "surefire paths to success still available"? Most academics agree that LLMs (or LLMs alone) are not going to lead us to AGI. How are you so certain?

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

#309

Post by ricardobeat » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 1:46 PM UTC

zikduruqe wrote: post #286

mehulashah wrote: post #277

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.

> This is the weirdest technology market that I’ve seen. You must have not lived through the dot com boom. There was almost everything under the sun was being sold under a website that started with an "e". ePets, ePlants, eStamps, eUnderwear, eStocks, eCards, eInvites.....

It's funny that the Netherlands seems to still live in the dotcom boom to this day. Want to adopt a pet? verhuisdieren.nl. Want to buy wall art? wall-art.nl. Need cat5 cable? kabelshop.nl. 8/10 times there is a (legit) online store for whatever you need, to the point where one of the local e-commerce giants (Coolblue) buys this type of domain and aliases them to their main site.

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

#310

Post by anotherd1p » Wed, Nov 12, 2025, 1:47 PM UTC

teleforce wrote: post #222

nsonha wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also he always sounds like "I know this will not work". Dude are you a researcher? You're supposed to experiment and follow the results. That's what separates you from oracles and freaking philosophers or whatever.

Do you know that all formally trained researchers have Doctor of Philosophy or PhD to their name? [1] [1] Doctor of Philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy

If academia is in question, then so are their titles. When I see "PhD", I read "we decided that he was at least good enough for the cause" PhD, or PhD (he fulfilled the criteria).