The researcher Meta recruited with a salary package of over a billion dollars is leaving after less than a year
Andrew Tulloch, a senior AI researcher recruited by Meta with a salary package of up to $1.5 billion, has resigned after less than a year on the job. Tulloch, who worked at Meta for 11 years and left in 2023 to found Thinking Machines Lab, joined Meta months after initially rejecting the offer. His departure comes a day after the launch of a consumer AI agent.
Andrew Tulloch, a senior AI researcher whom Meta recruited with a salary package of over a billion dollars, is leaving the company after less than a year on the job. According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Tulloch resigned yesterday (Wednesday) and did not provide a reason for his decision. Tulloch is considered one of the most prominent figures in his field. He worked at Meta for 11 years and left in 2023 to found the startup Thinking Machines Lab with OpenAI co-founder Mira Murati. Last October, it was reported that Meta tried to recruit him with a salary and bonus package worth up to $1.5 billion. Tulloch rejected this offer, but several months later he joined Meta anyway. Tulloch announced his resignation a day after Meta launched an AI agent for mainstream users, capable of sending emails, shopping online, and completing additional tasks. This is part of the company's efforts to take a central place in the AI revolution and close gaps with competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Tulloch and Meta did not respond to the report. Tulloch is the third of the Thinking Machines founders to change jobs in recent weeks. Last month, Barrett Zoph and Luke Metz, who moved from the startup they founded to OpenAI, resigned from the latter. Zoph moved to Google and Metz to Meta. Around the same time, Google's chief scientist Jeff Dean and three other senior AI researchers left the company to start a startup. This week, the resignation announcement of AI researcher Jacob Coxson from Anthropic made waves, as he warned that companies in the field are "competing on the path to superintelligence with self-improving capabilities and betting on our lives."