Weiyao Wang, after eight years at Meta working on multimodal perception systems and open-world segmentation projects like SAM3D, has joined Thinking Machines Lab (TML) following his last day at Meta last week.
TML’s growth is marked by a new multibillion-dollar cloud deal with Google, giving access to Nvidia’s latest GB300 chips, positioning TML among firms like Anthropic and Meta. Previously, Meta reportedly considered acquiring TML, and more recently, it has attracted TML’s founders.
The talent exchange continues with Wang and Kenneth Li, a Harvard PhD, recently joining TML, while Meta reportedly recruited seven of TML’s founding members. TML also gained notable former Meta staff such as Soumith Chintala, who co-founded PyTorch and joined TML as CTO, as well as Piotr Dollár, Andrea Madotto, and James Sun.
TML recruits from beyond Meta, with hires like Neal Wu from Cognition, Jeffrey Tao from Waymo and OpenAI, Muhammad Maaz from Anthropic, Erik Wijmans from Apple, and Liliang Ren from Microsoft.
With a current headcount of about 140, TML’s valuation stands at $12 billion. Despite having released just one product, its valuation suggests substantial potential, contrasting with higher valuations of industry leaders like OpenAI.
TML’s spokesperson declined to comment on the matter when reached.