Meta Multimodal Lead Jiahui Yu Departs to Found Startup
Jiahui Yu, multimodal core lead at Meta's Superintelligence Lab (MSL), announced he is leaving to found a new startup—just 14 months after joining Meta and only 8 days after his team released MuseSpark 1.2. At Meta he co-built TBD Lab with Mark Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang and led the Muse series and Voice Mode; his exit adds to a string of high-profile departures from Zuckerberg's heavily funded AI team.
Confirmed
- Yu announced the move in a departure statement, explaining that an increasingly compelling problem with profound implications for humanity drew him to start his own company.
- He co-founded TBD Lab with Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang, an experience he described as deeply inspiring.
- He led the Muse family—the MuseSpark multimodal reasoning model plus the MuseImage and MuseVideo generation models—as well as Voice Mode.
- Per 机器之心, the exit came 8 days after MuseSpark 1.2 shipped and 14 months after he joined Meta; he previously worked on Gemini at Google.
Unconfirmed
- Chinese outlet 量子位 reported he joined Meta's Superintelligence team last year with a rumored $100 million compensation package, a figure that remains unverified.
Why it matters
- Yu was a leading figure in Meta's multimodal efforts; his departure strips the Superintelligence Lab of a key leader amid ongoing talent attrition and could slow the pace of the Muse product line.
2026-08-14 ~ 2026-08-14 · 9 related posts
Primary sources
- [source] Jiahui Yu, Head of Multimodal at Meta, Leaves to Start New Company — jiahuiyu · 2026-08-14
- [source] Meta Multimodal Lead Jiahui Yu Leaves to Found Startup Despite $100M Offers — 量子位 · 2026-08-14
- Meta Superintelligence Lab Core Researcher Yujia Cui Leaves to Found Startup — 智东西 · 2026-08-14
6 near-duplicate retellings: adityakusupati · ananyaku · RickyTQChen · xwang_lk · yuyinzhou_cs · 机器之心