Meta's Superintelligence Lab Sees Early Departures, Some to OpenAI

At least three researchers have left Meta’s newly created Superintelligence Lab just weeks to months after joining the effort, and two of them have returned to their previous employer, according to multiple reports and public posts. The departures mark an early setback for the lab that CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled in late June as part of a high-profile push to accelerate work on so-called artificial general intelligence.

The researchers who have publicly departed include Avi Verma and Ethan Knight, both of whom previously worked at OpenAI and are reported to have rejoined that organisation after brief tenures at Meta. Rishabh Agarwal, who joined Meta in April and later moved into the Superintelligence Lab, announced on the social platform X that he would not continue with the "TBD lab," saying the decision was difficult given the "talent and compute density" but that after years at Google Brain, DeepMind and Meta he wanted to take "a different kind of risk." Meta veteran Chaya Nayak, director of generative AI product management, has also said she will join OpenAI, according to sources familiar with the hiring.

Accounts of the scale of turnover vary. Some reports have identified...