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Andrew Tulloch Meta: One of the co-founders of Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab has decided to move on, joining Meta Platforms. The company confirmed his exit on Saturday.
Andrew Tulloch, a well-known AI researcher, shared the news with employees in a message on Friday, according to people close to the matter.
“Andrew has chosen to follow a new path for personal reasons,” a spokesperson for Thinking Machines Lab said in a statement.
Tulloch is widely regarded as one of the top minds in artificial intelligence. He spent more than a decade at Meta before moving to OpenAI in 2023 for a short time.
Earlier this year, he partnered with Mira Murati to launch Thinking Machines Lab.
His comeback is seen as a big win for Meta.
The company has scaled back its rapid hiring from previous years and is now concentrating on strengthening its elite AI teams. Its next big ambition is to build what it describes as “superintelligence.”
A spokeswoman for Thinking Machines praised Tulloch’s impact, saying his work had been “foundational” to the company’s success.
“We’re deeply grateful for what he helped build and remain committed to completing the vision we started together,” she said.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta had reportedly offered Tulloch a compensation package that could have reached $1.5 billion, tied to major bonuses and strong stock performance. He ultimately turned down the offer.
A Meta representative later dismissed that report as “inaccurate and ridiculous,” explaining that any potential payout would depend entirely on the company’s stock value.
The exact terms of the offer Tulloch accepted have not been revealed. Tulloch has not replied to requests for comment.
Over the summer, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reached out to him along with more than a dozen other Thinking Machines employees. It remains unknown which team he will join at Meta.
Murati launched Thinking Machines in February, taking over 20 former OpenAI colleagues with her. The startup has secured $2 billion in funding and just released its first product, Tinker, an API for fine-tuning large language models.
Meta has big plans for artificial intelligence, on par with other top tech giants. The company is set to spend as much as $72 billion this year, mainly to expand data centers that power its AI models.
In the past few weeks, Meta launched a new AI tool—a video generator with its own dedicated tab in the Meta AI app. OpenAI followed soon after with a similar release.
Mark Zuckerberg has been personally leading the hunt for AI talent. He’s contacted researchers directly through emails and WhatsApp messages.
He has even hosted some at his home for meals and presentations. In certain cases, top recruits have been offered packages worth over $100 million.
Meta has brought on more than 50 AI researchers, engineers, and specialists from companies such as OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Apple, Anthropic, and xAI.
The company reorganized its AI operations into a new division called Superintelligence Labs.
As part of the initiative, Meta acquired a 49% stake in the data-labeling startup Scale AI and appointed its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to head the division.
Superintelligence Labs now manages four teams, including TBD Lab. This team, located near Zuckerberg’s office, is focused on creating the next-generation versions of Meta’s large language model, Llama.
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