Meta's loss is Thinking Machines' gain as AI talent war intensifies
Original: Meta’s loss is Thinking Machines’ gain
Why This Matters
Shows intensifying AI talent competition and infrastructure consolidation among top-tier startups
Thinking Machines Lab secured a multibillion-dollar Google Cloud deal for Nvidia GB300 chips while recruiting heavily from Meta, including former PyTorch co-founder Soumith Chintala as CTO. The talent war runs both directions.
Thinking Machines Lab has hired multiple high-profile researchers from Meta, including Weiyao Wang who spent eight years building multimodal perception systems. The AI startup's most prominent hire is Soumith Chintala, PyTorch co-founder who became CTO after leaving Meta in late 2025. Other key Meta recruits include Piotr Dollár, co-author of the Segment Anything model, and Andrea Madotto from FAIR division. The talent exchange flows both ways - Business Insider reported Meta has poached seven TML founding members. TML secured a multibillion-dollar Google Cloud partnership for Nvidia GB300 chips, placing it in the same infrastructure tier as Anthropic and Meta. The startup now employs around 140 people and has drawn talent from Apple, OpenAI, Waymo, and Microsoft.