Ex-OpenAI engineer snubs $1.5B Meta offer for startup
Andrew Tulloch, an Aussie AI whiz and former OpenAI engineer, just turned down a massive $1.5 billion deal from Meta.
Instead of joining Zuckerberg's team, he's all-in on Thinking Machines Lab—a startup he co-founded in 2025 with ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati.
Their mission? Build safer, more understandable AI (not just another chatbot), and they've already hit a $12 billion valuation.
Tulloch's impressive background
Tulloch's got serious academic chops: first-class honors in math from Sydney, a Cambridge master's in stats, and PhD research at Berkeley.
He spent over a decade at Meta working on machine learning and PyTorch before helping create GPT-4 at OpenAI.
Tulloch's decision highlights a growing trend in AI research
Thinking Machines Lab—backed by big names like NVIDIA and Google Cloud—focuses on making AI less mysterious and more trustworthy.
Tulloch turning down huge money for this shows how top researchers are now choosing purpose over paychecks, signaling a shift toward ethical, transparent AI that actually puts people first.