TL;DR
- Meta has reportedly hired Jason Wei and possibly Hyung Won Chung, two senior researchers from OpenAI.
- Both scientists worked on OpenAI’s deep research team, contributing to major models like o1 and o3.
- Their internal OpenAI Slack profiles are deactivated, suggesting confirmed departures.
- Wei and Chung previously collaborated at Google before joining OpenAI.
- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is aggressively expanding his Superintelligence Lab to compete in AGI.
- The hires reflect Meta’s strategy of recruiting researchers in collaborative clusters, often with exceptional compensation.
Meta’s Talent Grab Targets AGI Pioneers
Meta appears to have made another high-profile acquisition in the ongoing battle for AI supremacy. According to a Wired report, OpenAI researcher Jason Wei is confirmed to be joining Meta’s newly launched Superintelligence Lab, with colleague Hyung Won Chung likely to follow.
The duo are among OpenAI’s most prominent minds in deep reasoning and agent development, with both having worked on foundational models including OpenAI’s o1 and o3. Their Slack accounts within OpenAI have been reportedly deactivated, a strong signal that the move is already underway.
Building a Superintelligence Lab with Proven Research Teams
Wei and Chung are not just any hires — they represent a concentrated intellectual cluster, a dynamic Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is said to favor. Much like assembling “ready-made teams,” Zuckerberg has increasingly recruited AI units that have proven chemistry and success, similar to military draft strategies used in World War II-era Britain, according to Wired.
Meta’s Superintelligence Lab, announced earlier this year, is part of the company’s effort to leapfrog OpenAI and DeepMind by investing in artificial general intelligence (AGI) capabilities. The lab is reportedly central to its 2025 plan to scale beyond LLMs toward multi-agent reasoning systems and autonomous cognitive tools.
Meta’s AI Hiring Momentum
| Key Metric | Detail |
| New Hire Confirmed | Jason Wei |
| Possible Hire | Hyung Won Chung |
| Prior Affiliation | OpenAI, Google |
| Areas of Focus | Deep research, o1/o3 models, agents |
| Previous Collaborations | Chain-of-thought research at Google |
| Current Status | OpenAI Slack profiles deactivated |
| Destination | Meta Superintelligence Lab |
| Reported Source | Wired |
From Google to OpenAI to Meta: A Research Trajectory
Wei and Chung both built their reputations through cutting-edge research into reasoning frameworks and agent behavior, initially working at Google before migrating to OpenAI. At OpenAI, Wei contributed heavily to model o3, while Chung was closely involved in the development of o1 and broader deep reasoning experiments.
Their expertise aligns directly with Meta’s increasing interest in autonomous agents, logical inference, and multi-modal learning, key building blocks of a future AGI system.
Zuckerberg’s Compensation Strategy: Attracting Elite AI Minds
Zuckerberg’s recruitment strategy goes far beyond compensation, but the packages offered to top AI researchers have been described as “astounding,” according to multiple insiders cited by Wired. With OpenAI under mounting scrutiny from both regulatory bodies and internal leadership changes, Meta’s more aggressive and engineering-centric culture appears to be luring away some of its most valuable personnel.
This follows earlier reports of Meta poaching talent from Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Mistral, creating a diversified in-house cohort of multi-lab-trained AI experts.
Internal Signals and Industry Impact
While neither Meta nor OpenAI has officially confirmed the moves, the deactivation of Slack accounts for both Wei and Chung at OpenAI adds significant credibility to the report.
As Meta continues to scale up AGI research, the industry is witnessing a clear realignment of top-tier AI talent, not unlike what occurred in the early days of Silicon Valley chip wars or the formation of NASA’s early moonshot teams.
Anchor Text Links and References
- Read the original Wired article on the reported hires.
- Learn about Meta’s new Superintelligence Lab initiative.
- Explore OpenAI’s model evolution from o1 to o3.
- Compare AGI hiring trends in DeepMind and Anthropic.
- Read more about Jason Wei’s previous research.
