Lilian Weng Makes a Swift Return to OpenAI
OpenAI
Lilian Weng, who left Thinking Machines Lab due to health reasons, has returned to OpenAI to lead a "self-evolving" team. She is the third of Thinking Machines Lab's six co-founders to rejoin OpenAI, leaving only CEO Mira Murati and Chief Scientist John Schulman.
Just days after leaving Thinking Machines Lab (TML) citing health issues, Lilian Weng has returned to OpenAI. According to OpenAI insiders, Weng will lead a "self-evolving" team focused on enabling models to train and improve their own successor models, a high-priority research direction. Weng is the third co-founder of TML to return to OpenAI, following Barret Zoph and Luke Metz. TML now has only two of its original six co-founders remaining: CEO Mira Murati and Chief Scientist John Schulman. Andrew Tulloch left for Meta, and Zoph later left OpenAI in June. Weng previously spent six years at OpenAI, rising to VP of Research and Safety and contributing to GPT-4 and safety research. She left OpenAI in late 2024 amid a wave of departures, then joined TML in 2025 as a co-founder. Her return to OpenAI after about a year and a half marks a significant reversal. Meanwhile, TML has seen at least 14 of its 42 founding team members depart, with key talent being "reabsorbed" by OpenAI.
- Сокращения
- TML = Thinking Machines Lab — Лаборатория Thinking Machines
- CEO = Chief Executive Officer — Генеральный директор
- CTO = Chief Technology Officer — Технический директор
Source: QbitAI 量子位 —
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