AI Expert Andrew Tulloch Joins Meta from Thinking Machines Lab
▼ Summary
– Thinking Machines Lab co-founder Andrew Tulloch has left the AI startup to join Meta.
– Tulloch’s departure was announced to employees in a Friday message and confirmed by a company spokesperson.
– Meta previously attempted to acquire Thinking Machines Lab and later offered Tulloch a compensation package potentially worth up to $1.5 billion.
– A Meta spokesperson disputed the Wall Street Journal’s description of the compensation offer as “inaccurate and ridiculous.”
– Tulloch has prior work experience at both OpenAI and Facebook’s AI Research Group.
Meta has successfully recruited Andrew Tulloch, a prominent artificial intelligence researcher and co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, marking another significant hire in the tech giant’s aggressive push to dominate the AI field. Tulloch announced his departure to colleagues in a recent internal message, a move confirmed by a spokesperson for Thinking Machines Lab, the startup led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. The spokesperson noted Tulloch is leaving for personal reasons to follow a new professional direction.
This development follows a report from The Wall Street Journal last August detailing Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s ambitious campaign to attract top AI talent. According to the Journal, Zuckerberg initially attempted to acquire the entire Thinking Machines Lab startup. When that acquisition did not proceed, the focus reportedly shifted to personally recruiting Andrew Tulloch. The publication claimed Meta presented a compensation package potentially valued as high as $1.5 billion over a minimum of six years to entice him. A Meta spokesperson previously responded to these claims, labeling the Journal’s characterization of the offer as both “inaccurate and ridiculous.”
Tulloch brings a wealth of experience from two of the most influential organizations in modern artificial intelligence. His career includes a tenure at OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and he also previously contributed his expertise to Meta’s own AI Research group, known as FAIR. His return to the Meta ecosystem represents a major coup for the company as it intensifies its competition in the rapidly advancing AI sector.
(Source: TechCrunch)
