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

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

#551

Post by WalterSear »

AdamN wrote: post #495
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.

I think that's a good thing and VC getting back to it's roots. I'm glad that scientists doing AI are getting big money and don't know exactly what the product will be rather than some business person with a slick deck and hockey stick charts.

VC isn't "getting back to it's roots", though it is certainly displaying one of it's fundamental drives: FOMO.

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

#552

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

Aurornis wrote: post #315
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.

> Researchers are getting rewarded with VC money to try what remains a science experiment. That used to be a bad word I’ve worked for multiple startups and I’ve watched startup job boards most of my career. A lot of VC backed startups have a founder with a research background and are focused on providing out some hypothesis. I don’t see anything uncommon about this arrangement. If you live near a University that does…

Yeah, but Sutskever and Murati wouldn't even tell investors what they were working on, and LeCun only has a long-term research direction - not any breakthrough or prototype to commercialize.

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

#553

Post by [deleted] »

Razengan wrote: post #520
bcherny wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, Boris from the Claude Code team here. We try hard to read through every issue, and respond to as many issues as possible. The challenge is we have hundreds of new issues each day, and even after Claude dedupes and triages them, practically we can’t get to all of them immediately. The specific issue you linked is related to the way Ink works, and the way terminals use ANSI escape codes to control rendering. When…

How about giving us the basic UX stuff that all other AI products have? I've been posting this ever since I first tried Claude: Let us: * Sign in with Apple on the website * Buy subscriptions from iOS In App Purchases * Remove our payment info from our account before the inevitable data breach * Give paying subscribers an easy way to get actual support As a frequent traveller I'm not sure if some of those features ar…

[deleted]

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

#554

Post by WalterSear »

panarky wrote: post #460
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.

If a science experiment works and is transformational can be worth a trillion dollars, how much is it worth if it has a 5% chance of being transformational?

What it's transformational but takes a decade or so, instead of a year or so?

It's not like this isn't following exactly the same hype cycle as every other technological transformation.

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

#555

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

gdulli wrote: post #362
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.

If a "science experiment" has the chance to displace most labor then whoever's successful at the experiment wins the economy, period. There's nothing weird or surprising about the logic of them obsessively chasing it. They all have to, it's a prisoner's dilemma.

Technology know-how spreads rapidly, so no need to be first. Look how fast Google caught up with Gemini when they chose to, or how fast X.ai developed Grok.

Maybe it's cheap insurance to invest in, say, LeCun just in case JEPA or the animal intelligence approach takes off, but if it does show significant signs of progress there'd also be opportunity to invest later, or in one of the dozen copycats that will emerge. In the end it'll be the giants like Google and Microsoft that will win.

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

#556

Post by uoaei »

re-thc wrote: post #219
fhd2 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the LLM hype doesn't cool down fast, we're probably looking at another AI winter. Appears to me like he's just trying to ensure he'll have funding for chasing the global maximum going forward.

> If the LLM hype doesn't cool down fast, we're probably looking at another AI winter. Is the real bubble ignorance? Maybe you'll cool down but the rest of the world? There will just be more DeepSeek and more advances until the US loses its standing.

How is it a foregone conclusion that squeezing the stone will continue to produce blood?

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

#557

Post by fastball »

John7878781 wrote: post #490
fastball wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? From where I'm standing LeCun is a pompous researcher who had early success in his career, and has been capitalizing on that ever since. Have you read any of his papers from the last 20 years? 90% of his citations are to his own previous papers. From there, he missed the boat on LLMs and is now pretending everyone else is wrong so that he can feel better about it.

Is he wrong though? Do you really think LLMs are the path to AGI?

I have no idea, but they're so good at some stuff we had to start using a new acronym (AGI) in order to compensate.

I certainly don't think LeCun has a better idea.

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

#558

Post by pksebben »

xnx wrote: post #486
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. The phenomenon you're seeing is well described here: "The Perfect AI Startup" ( https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/newsletters/2025-09-29/the... ) “It was the most absurd pitch meeting,” one investor who met with Murati said. “She was like, ‘So we’re doing an AI company with the best AI people, but we can’t answer any questions.’” Despite that vagueness, Murati…

From a certain angle, this is the market correcting towards the abstraction.

Between inflation, fiscal capture, and the inane plethora of ridiculous financial vehicles that are used to move capital around these days, the argument could be made that the money was already funny. This is just the drop of the final veil, saying "well it's not like these numbers mean anything anymore. I do have enough yachts. Fuck it, see what you can do with it".

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

#559

Post by antonvs »

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.

> Researchers are getting rewarded with VC money to try what remains a science experiment.

That's not all that new. Commercial fusion power startups are an example. I think the first one was General Fusion, founded in 2002. Today, there are around 50 of them. Every single one of those "remains a science experiment", and probably has much lower chance of success than some of the AI science experiments.

Of course, fusion startups have apparently "only" received about $10 bn in funding to date, so pale in comparison to the overall AI market. But if you just look at the AI "science experiments", it's possible the amounts would be comparable.

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

#560

Post by antonvs »

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.....

None of those were science experiments or research projects in any way.
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