AI godfather Yan LeCun has criticized former boss Alexander Wang, saying he lacks the experience to lead research into meta AI.
AI godfather Yann LeCun has attacked Meta’s billion-dollar decision to hire Alexander Wang to lead its superintelligence team. LeCun, who previously served as chief AI scientist at Meta, believes the 28-year-old Wang lacks the experience to lead an AI team.
AI godfather Yann LeCun has criticized his former employer Meta for appointing 28-year-old Alexander Wang to lead its superintelligence labs. LeCun, who resigned as chief AI scientist at Meta in November last year, believes Wang lacks the experience needed to lead an AI team. The 28-year-old was LeCun’s boss for a while after a restructuring of Meta’s AI team.
Yann LeCun calls Alexander Wang inexperienced to lead Meta AI
In an interview with the Financial Times, Yann LeCun criticized Meta’s billion-dollar effort to get Alexander Wang to lead the superintelligence team. Meta acquired 49 percent stake of Scale AI, a startup co-founded by Wang, for $14 billion in June 2025 to bring the 28-year-old on board.
Yan LeCun acknowledged that Alexander Wang was a quick learner, but he did not see him as the kind of researcher who should lead a meta project. He said, “He learns fast, he knows what he doesn’t know. There’s no research experience or how you practice research, how you do it. Or what would be attractive or repulsive to a researcher.”
Yann LeCun reveals the AI team sidelined by Mark Zuckerberg in Meta
The leadership change comes amid turbulent times for Meta’s AI teams. LeCun revealed that after the disappointing release of Meta’s flagship large language model Llama 4, internal issues began to emerge and Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg was not happy. “Mark was really upset and basically lost confidence in everyone involved,” the AI Godfather explained. He added, “And so basically the entire GenAI organization was sidelined.”
While Alexandre Wang served as Yann Lecan’s boss for a time after structural changes in leadership, Lecan made it clear that Wang did not actually direct him during this period. The AI godfather said, “You don’t tell a researcher what to do. You certainly don’t tell a researcher like me what to do.”
Yann LeCun disagrees with Meta’s AI approach
LeCun did not retain his skepticism about the current trajectory of META in AI, particularly its focus on large language models. “I’m sure there are a lot of people at Meta, probably including Alex (Alexander Wang), who wish I didn’t tell the world that LLM is basically a dead end when it comes to superintelligence,” LeCun said. “But I will not change my mind because some people think I am wrong. I am not wrong. My integrity as a scientist cannot allow me to do that.”
After more than a decade at Meta, Laken’s decision to leave is rooted in political and research differences, as he sees the company’s “superintelligence push” as being dominated by proponents of the larger language model. Now, the AI godfather is leading a new startup,
Where he will work as executive chairman instead of CEO. “I’m a scientist, a visionary. I can inspire people to work on interesting things. I’m very good at predicting what kind of technology will or won’t work. But I can’t be a CEO,” LeCun said. “I’m too disorganized and too old for that!”
