Meta's ambitious Superintelligence Labs (MSL), a focal point of Mark Zuckerberg's aggressive artificial intelligence (AI) hiring blitz, has recently faced a series of high-profile departures, prompting scrutiny into the fiercely competitive landscape for top AI talent. At least three employees, including Rishabh Agarwal, Avi Verma, and Ethan Knight, have left MSL less than a month after being hired for what were described as extravagant pay packages. Notably, Verma and Knight have returned to Sam Altman-led OpenAI, underscoring the intense back-and-forth between leading AI organizations.

Rishabh Agarwal, an Indian AI researcher with a distinguished background, announced his departure from Meta in an elaborate post on social media platform X, labeling it a “tough decision.” He conveyed that while the pitch from Mark Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang for the Superintelligence team was incredibly compelling, he “felt the pull to take on a different kind of risk.” Agarwal, who was reportedly hired for a million-dollar salary just months prior, explicitly cited Mark Zuckerberg's own advice: “In a world that’s changing so fast, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk.” During his five-month tenure at Meta, Agarwal noted that he and his team “did push the frontier on post-training for 'thinking' models.”

Agarwal's professional journey is extensive and impressive. An alumnus of IIT Bombay with a degree in Computer Science and Engineering, he pursued his PhD in Artificial Intelligence at Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute in Canada. His career includes research internships at Saavn (Search and Algorithms division) and Tower Research Capital (Algorithm Trading team). He served as a Senior Research Scientist at Google Brain from June 2018 to 2023, focusing on deep reinforcement learning (Deep RL). Subsequently, he joined Google DeepMind, where he spent two years working on large language models (LLMs) using reinforcement learning, self-improvement, and distillation, before being poached by Meta in April. Agarwal also holds an Adjunct Professor position at McGill University.

These high-profile exits come amidst reports of a hiring freeze within Meta's AI division, as reported by the Wall Street Journal on August 20. A Meta spokesperson, Dave Arnold, downplayed the significance of the departures, stating that such moves are “normal” during an intense recruiting process, with some individuals opting to remain in their current roles. Regarding the hiring freeze, another Meta spokesperson informed Reuters that it was merely