Meta Snags AI Talent: Andrew Tulloch Leaves Thinking Machines Lab

Thinking Machines Lab co-founder Andrew Tulloch heads to Meta | TechCrunch

Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, has lost one of its co-founders to Meta. The Wall Street Journal reports that AI researcher Andrew Tulloch announced his departure to employees in a message on Friday. A Thinking Machine Labs spokesperson confirmed Tulloch's departure to the WSJ, saying he "has decided to pursue a different path for personal reasons." Back in August, the WSJ reported that Mark Zuckerberg's aggressive AI recruiting blitz included an offer to acquire Thinking Machines Lab -- and when that failed, Zuckerberg reportedly tried to lure Tulloch with a compensation package that could have been worth up to $1.5 billion over at least six years. (At the time, a Meta spokesperson said that the WSJ's description of the offer was "inaccurate and ridiculous.") Tulloch previously worked at OpenAI and Facebook's AI Research Group.

Behind the scenes: Meta still on prowl for AI talent

Tulloch will join Meta's newly formed TBD Labs unit, headed by Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, the source said, although Tulloch's specific focus is not yet clear. * Tulloch, a well-regarded machine learning expert who previously worked at Meta and OpenAI, has most recently been a key figure at Thinking Machines, the startup founded by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati. Flashback: The Wall Street Journal reported in August that, having failed to buy Thinking Machines, Zuckerberg had tried to recruit Tulloch with a jaw-dropping pay package that could have been worth as much as $1.5 billion when factoring in bonuses and assuming a sufficient rise in Meta's stock. Meta denied at the time that its offer stretched that high, with a spokesman calling it "inaccurate and ridiculous." * Meta has spent billions in its recent AI hiring spree, which included a $15 billion investment in Scale AI, a deal that made Wang's hiring possible. Go deeper: Meta and OpenAI lean into social AI video.

Meta poaches Thinking Labs co-founder Tulloch in ongoing AI drive

Australian AI research star Andrew Tulloch has reportedly departed Mira Murati's Thinking Machines as Meta continues to poach top AI talent. Just days after Mira Murati's Thinking Machines launched its first product Tinker onto the market, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is reporting that Meta has successfully poached Andrew Tulloch, a co-founder with Murati, and the subject of numerous head-hunting rumours in recent months. The WSJ says Tulloch confirmed his departure in a letter to employees on Friday (October 10). The researcher had previously spent 11 years with Meta before departing to join OpenAI in 2023, subsequently joining around twenty other OpenAI team members to throw their lot in with former OpenAI CTO Murati's newly founded Thinking Machines. Tulloch becomes the latest is a slew of big name hires by Meta this year as it struggles to catch up with other Silicon Valley players in the much-hyped AI boom. It had previously been widely reported that Tulloch had turned down an offer by Meta valued by some at as much as $1.5bn, although this of course would have included a share package that would not have certainty when it came to compensation. It had also been widely reported that Meta had spent the summer approaching many Thinking Machines team members and that indeed Mark Zuckerberg had approached Mira Murati herself. Zuckerberg successfully poached senior figures from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Apple and Anthropic and reorganised its AI efforts under its Superintelligence Labs division over the summer. It notably bought a controlling stake in data-labelling firm ScaleAI in June, appointing its founder Alexandr Wang to head up the division. Just last week Murati's Thinking Machines launched its much anticipated first product - Tinker, "a flexible API for fine-tuning language models". In July, Murati's Thinking Machines Labs attracted $2bn in investment in a round led by A16z (Andreessen Horowitz), seeing it valued at $12bn, before even bringing a product to market. Other investors included chips giants Nvidia and AMD, as well as Accel, ServiceNow, Cisco and Jane Street. As CTO at OpenAI, Murati oversaw some of the major developments at the AI giant - including the likes of ChatGPT - and even briefly took over as interim chief executive officer of OpenAI when Sam Altman was removed in November 2023, before subsequently being reinstated. She brought a team of over 20 former OpenAI employees with her when she departed, but Tulloch had been credited as co-founder. Don't miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic's digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

Andrew Tulloch leaves Thinking Machines Lab for Meta

Tulloch previously worked at both OpenAI and Facebook's AI Research Group before co-founding Thinking Machines Lab. AI researcher and Thinking Machines Lab co-founder Andrew Tulloch is joining Meta, according to The Wall Street Journal. Tulloch announced his departure from the AI startup, which is led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, in a message to employees on Friday. A spokesperson for Thinking Machines Lab confirmed Tulloch's exit to the WSJ. The spokesperson stated that Tulloch "has decided to pursue a different path for personal reasons." His move follows earlier recruitment efforts by Meta that targeted both the startup and its personnel. A previous WSJ report from August detailed that Mark Zuckerberg's AI recruiting initiatives included an unsuccessful offer to acquire Thinking Machines Lab. After the failed bid, Zuckerberg reportedly attempted to hire Tulloch with a compensation package potentially worth as much as $1.5 billion over a minimum of six years. In response to the August report, a Meta spokesperson characterized the WSJ's description of the compensation offer as "inaccurate and ridiculous." Tulloch's career history includes previous roles at OpenAI and at Facebook's AI Research Group, a division within Meta.

Zuckerberg snares Australian tech superstar as AI hiring war heats up

Gift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe. Mark Zuckerberg has poached Australian artificial intelligence specialist Andrew Tulloch from one of Silicon Valley's hottest start-ups, striking a blow for Meta in its big-money push to hoard the sector's hottest talent. Tulloch is credited as a co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab - a mysterious AI start-up run by former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, which had global investors - including Australia's Square Peg Capital and Airtree Ventures - jostling to invest in a $US2 billion ($3 billion) funding round that closed in July.

Mark Zuckerberg drops another $1.5 billion pay package for top AI researcher - who is he and what's his fame?

Mark Zuckerberg has made another bold move in his relentless race to dominate artificial intelligence. Meta has reportedly secured the services of Andrew Tulloch, co-founder of Mira Murati's startup Thinking Machines Lab, with a staggering pay deal that underscores the tech giant's high-stakes push in the AI arena. Meta Platforms Inc. has hired Andrew Tulloch, co-founder of Mira Murati's AI startup Thinking Machines Lab, in one of the most high-profile AI talent acquisitions of the year. According to reports from The Wall Street Journal, Tulloch's deal could reach $1.5 billion over at least six years, a combination of stock incentives and performance-based bonuses, as per a report by Benzinga. ALSO READ: 3I/ATLAS mystery deepens - Astronomer claims 1-in-3 chance comet is actually an alien vessel A spokesperson for Thinking Machines Lab confirmed Tulloch's exit, saying, "Andrew has decided to pursue a different path for personal reasons." This comes after Meta's failed attempt to acquire Murati's startup outright. When negotiations fell through, Zuckerberg reportedly began reaching out to several of its top engineers directly, Tulloch among them. The move reflects Meta's intensified effort to close the gap with industry leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind in the global AI arms race, as per a report by Benzinga. Mark Zuckerberg has been on a recruitment blitz unlike any other, zeroing in on the brightest AI minds across the tech industry. In recent months, Meta has approached researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Alphabet Inc.'s Google DeepMind as part of a strategy to rapidly scale its AI talent base, as per a report by Benzinga. ALSO READ: Who will inherit Diane Keaton's massive $100 million fortune? Did she leave a will? Here's what we know OpenAI CEO Sam Altman previously revealed that Meta had offered some of his employees bonuses worth up to $100 million to switch teams, highlighting just how far Zuckerberg is willing to go. For Zuckerberg, Meta's push into generative AI isn't just about catching up, it's about setting a new benchmark. The company has poured billions into developing AI infrastructure and advanced models to power everything from the metaverse to social recommendations. Tulloch's addition signals Meta's intention to double down on innovation rather than acquisition. ALSO READ:No Kings protest on October 18: What's the weather forecast in US, will it rain in major cities? Not everyone is surprised by Zuckerberg's big-spending approach. Yun-Ta Tsai, a senior staff engineer at Tesla Inc. and a former Nokia researcher, wrote on X (formerly Twitter): "When working for a founder, you want to work for one willing to go bankrupt with their personal fortune despite low chances of success. That is very rare. Most people only want to retire sooner." Tsai's comment reflects the sentiment that founders like Zuckerberg are playing the long game, betting personal and corporate resources on transformative AI breakthroughs, as per a report by Benzinga. ALSO READ: Nicole Kidman split leaves Keith Urban in hiding -- friends reveal shocking details Meta's AI mission extends far beyond its social platforms. The company is building a foundation for large-scale AI integration across its products, from Instagram's Reels recommendations to AI-driven avatars in virtual reality. Recruiting top scientists like Tulloch gives Meta not only technical depth but also strategic insight into cutting-edge AI architectures. The hiring wave also comes as competition across the AI sector intensifies. OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft, Anthropic's collaboration with Amazon, and Google's advancements with DeepMind have raised the bar for every major player. Zuckerberg's billion-dollar bet on Tulloch underscores Meta's determination to dominate the next wave of AI innovation. By recruiting from Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab, Meta gains access to one of the brightest minds behind cutting-edge machine learning frameworks, as per a report by Benzinga. With the competition heating up and tech leaders racing to secure talent, Zuckerberg's approach signals that Meta is willing to invest heavily, even if it means billion-dollar paychecks, to stay at the forefront of artificial intelligence. Who did Meta hire from Mira Murati's Thinking Machines Lab? Meta hired Andrew Tulloch, co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, in a major move to boost its AI research division. How much is Tulloch's Meta deal reportedly worth? His compensation package could total up to $1.5 billion over six years, including stock incentives and performance bonuses.

Meta Taps Thinking Machines Co-Founder to Boost AI Expertise | PYMNTS.com

Andrew Tulloch, a high-profile AI researcher, confirmed his departure in a message to workers on Friday (Oct. 10), The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. "Andrew has decided to pursue a different path for personal reasons," a spokeswoman for Thinking Machines told the news outlet. According to the report, Tulloch worked at Meta for 11 years before leaving the company in 2023 to join OpenAI. He co-founded Thinking Machines with Mira Murati -- another OpenAI vet -- at the beginning of this year. The report characterized Tulloch's recruitment as the latest in a series of coups for Meta following a recent hiring spree, with the company shifting its focus to its new AI teams in pursuit of so-called "superintelligence." An earlier WSJ report said Tulloch was offered and declined a pay package from Meta that could have been worth up to $1.5 billion with top bonuses and extraordinary stock performance. A spokesperson for Meta called the description of the offer "inaccurate and ridiculous." The news comes days after Thinking Machine debuted its first product. Tinker is a training application programming interface (API) designed to give organizations complete control over model training and fine-tuning while the startup manages the underlying infrastructure. "With Tinker, Thinking Machines joins a growing number of firms building tools aimed to help organizations train and deploy models faster, at lower cost and with greater control than major providers like OpenAI or Anthropic," PYMNTS wrote last week. In a recent press release, the company said its goal was to allow "more people to do research on cutting-edge models and customize them to their needs." The launch comes months after the company's $2 billion seed round, among the biggest on record for the AI sector. Until now, little was known about what the firm was building. According to the company's announcement, Tinker lets users "fine-tune a range of large and small open-weight models" by adapting an existing model to a specific task, like identifying fraud or analyzing transactions, without needing to retrain it from scratch. "It takes care of the heavy lifting behind AI training: distributing workloads, handling compute resources and maintaining reliability," PYMNTS wrote. "This approach removes a major operational barrier for smaller research teams, startups and enterprise developers that want to adapt open models for their own data."

AI Expert Andrew Tulloch Joins Meta to Lead New AI Development Efforts

Meta has hired Andrew Tulloch, co-founder of AI startup Thinking Machines Lab. He will lead Meta's new AI projects. This is a big step for the tech giant to grow its AI team while staying ahead of others in the competition. Tulloch is a well-known AI researcher. He worked earlier at Meta's AI team and at OpenAI. In 2025, he co-founded Thinking Machines Lab with Mira Murati, former CTO of OpenAI. The startup makes that are safe, helpful, and easy for people to use. Thinking Machines Lab grew quickly. It raised $2 billion in funding and became valued at $12 billion. The company hired many smart AI experts, including people from . Tulloch helped build the team and its technology. A spokesperson from Thinking Machines Lab said Tulloch left the startup for personal reasons. Meta had made him a big offer, showing how competitive top AI jobs are.