Will Yann LeCun retain his role as chief AI scientist at Meta until January 1, 2026? Or will he be forced out of the role? Also resolves negatively if he resigns/retires or if his position is very clearly superseded (or demoted in significance), such as if a new Meta AI lead is announced while Yann just remains a figurehead.
His departure must occur before Jan 1, 2026.
Update 2026-01-11 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): The creator is leaning towards resolving this as "No" based on the following analysis:
Key factors being considered:
Official departure date: Yann LeCun's LinkedIn shows he was Chief AI Scientist until "Jan 2026." Without clear evidence his last day was before December 31st, 2025, this alone may not trigger a "No" resolution.
Whether his position was "very clearly superseded": The creator now believes Shengjia Zhao (chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs, which absorbed FAIR in August 2025) has the strongest claim to having "very clearly superseded" Yann LeCun by becoming a higher-ranked Chief Scientist of an AI organization at Meta.
Important context:
Alexandr Wang replaced Yann's prior boss (CPO Chris Cox) rather than directly replacing Yann
Yann technically never lost his role as Chief Scientist within FAIR itself
The creator acknowledges the resolution criteria were ambiguous and that it only became "very clear" after additional reporting later in the year
The creator is open to hearing additional thoughts/research before making a final resolution decision.
1,000People are also trading
Wow, to think that when I created the market people thought the resolution criteria was unambiguous! I am really, really kicking myself for not writing better resolution criteria.
There are two major things I'm looking at to determine if the question should resolve "no":
1) Did he officially leave before January 1st, 2026? He appears to have left right around New Year's day, but his last day may have officially been after December 31st, 2025, which would not qualify for a "no" resolution. I don't put faith in unsubstantiated claims from commentators about seeing his badge date, but I've seen that Yann LeCun now marks that he was Chief AI Scientist until "Jan 2026" on his LinkedIn. If I could somehow get evidence such as that he did not enter the office and no longer owned/used work equipment (e.g., badge, work laptop/phone) after December 31st, then I would probably resolve this market as "No." Maybe if news articles had been quite specific about whether his last day was before New Year's day, this would suffice. But at this point I don't foresee getting such evidence, so his LinkedIn claims seem to reign. So the resolution more comes down to the second issue:
2) Did the staffing shakeups—mainly the hiring of Alexandr Wang—satisfy the criteria of "his position is very clearly superseded (or demoted in significance), such as if a new Meta AI lead is announced while Yann just remains a figurehead"? This is very frustrating to resolve. I feel that the resolution based on the underlying spirit of the market should be "No": he probably was superseded/diminished by the hiring of Alexandr Wang, and it seems to be driven in part by the observation that motivated me to create the market—that LeCun's performance was lacking. The major problems here are:
A) I overestimated/misunderstood Yann LeCun's role when I created the market: he may have been more of a figurehead/guru to begin with. His role at FAIR seemed somewhat separate from the actual product team, who had probably been doing more of their own thing just sometimes with the support/advice of the research team. Crucially, it seems like Alexandr Wang replaced Yann LeCun's prior boss, CPO Chris Cox, rather than Alexandr Wang directly replacing Yann LeCun at FAIR. FAIR continued to exist and retained its Chief AI Scientist, LeCun.
B) Yann technically never lost his role as Chief Scientist within FAIR itself.
C) My wording did say "very clearly superseded (or demoted in significance)." If not for the "very clearly" modifier then I probably would have already resolved this as "no," last year. (It doesn't need to be "very clear" at the surface to a lay observer, but it needs to be very clear after I've analyzed the facts)
D) Shengjia Zhao, the chief scientist of Meta Superintelligence Labs (which absorbed FAIR after the Wang restructuring memo in August 2025) actually seems to have a decent claim to "very clearly" supersede Yann LeCun—much more so than Alexandr Wang, who was just a very different role from Yann (as noted above). Crucially, I'm not aware of any higher-ranking chief AI scientist (or "chief scientist" of an AI team) prior to this restructuring in 2025, and based on reporting in recent months, it has become increasingly clear that Yann's influence on overall AI research (not just productization) has been diminished by the restructuring by Alexandr Wang.
E) I realize that some people will be quite upset that I did not resolve this market earlier. As hinted above, I don't think it was very clear even with hindsight until more articles came out later in the year, and the fact that he did leave (regardless of the exact date) is further evidence. If I had dug deeper into this, perhaps I could have resolved this as "no" as early as November/December. (Yet, even now I still don't know if I'm missing anything)
Ultimately, I currently am leaning towards resolving this as "No" on the basis that Shengjia Zhao "very clearly superseded" Yann by becoming a higher ranked Chief Scientist of an AI organization in Meta, whereas previously Yann seemed to have been the most senior such person, regardless of how much he was a figurehead in his role. However, I am open to hearing thoughts/research, and would like to know from mods how to handle the fact that some people may have bet after the time that I perhaps could/should have resolved this.
@hmdurlz I would be very tilted if this is resolved NO, because the fact that the market remained open until the new year makes it seem the timeline is the main resolution criteria, and I traded primarily based on this fact that it would resolve YES if he left in 2026. If the second point stood, it should have been resolved way sooner or specified as such. Also sent you a dm of evidence to show he was still the chief scientist by eoy 2025
Even if he were superseded slightly in responsibilities, which is still very unclear as he managed many other researchers, he was not “clearly” superseded as stated in resolution criteria and I don’t think one can easily make a claim he was “clearly superseded” without being a high ranking employee at meta. Especially the fact that Zhao officially was not a higher ranking employee.
@hmdurlz Basically I saw his official badge post from my friend who works at Meta. I can send you a screenshot lol but I don’t want to sell out my friend by posting it here.
This Polymarket would support a NO resolution: https://polymarket.com/event/will-yann-lecun-leave-meta-by-end-of-year.
@aleven different criteria, Polymarket resolves based on his official announcement regardless of his actual employment relationship with meta.
https://www.ft.com/content/c586eb77-a16e-4363-ab0b-e877898b70de
"LeCun has told associates he will leave the Silicon Valley group in the coming months, according to people familiar with the conversations."
> coming months
sounds likely to be after EOY 2025
@Dulaman don't trust them not to silently copy prediction markets if prediction markets exist and are available in its search btw
