AI researcher Rishabh Agarwal who joined Mark Zuckerberg's Superintelligence team at million-dollar salary quits after just 5 months; says: I ultimately choose to follow Mark's advice that ...

Meta’s Superintelligence Lab that includes some of the high-profile hirings, including from OpenAI, Google and Apple, has seen a departure. Just 5 months after joining reportedly on a million-dollar salary, AI scientist Rishabh Agarwal has announced his exit to pursue “a different kind of risk.” Agarwal confirmed his departure in a post on social media stating that after working with Meta, Google Brain and DeepMind, he is now seeking new challenges.“This is my last week at @AIatMeta. It was a tough decision not to continue with the new Superintelligence TBD lab, especially given the talent and compute density. But after 7.5 years across Google Brain, DeepMind, and Meta, I felt the pull to take on a different kind of risk,” Rishabh Agarwal stated in a post on X (formerly Twitter). "The pitch from Mark Zuckerberg and Alexandr Wang to build in the Superintelligence team was incredibly compelling. But I ultimately choose to follow Mark's own advice: “In a world that’s changing so fast, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk”," he said.Rishabh Agarwal is not the only high-profile exit. A report by Wired suggests that at least three researchers have left the team in recent weeks, two of whom have already returned to rival OpenAI. One of the returnees is Avi Verma, who previously worked at OpenAI before joining Meta. The other is Ethan Knight, who had worked at OpenAI, then moved to Elon Musk’s xAI, and later joined Meta before making his return. These exits are particularly notable as they come from among the elite hires Meta made as part of its ambitious push to build "superintelligence," a program announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg just two months ago. Reports have suggested that the new recruits were reportedly offered multi-million-dollar compensation packages in an effort to aggressively target talent from competitors like Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and xAI.Before joining Meta’s Superintelligence Lab, Rishabh Agarwal had already built an impressive career. An alumnus of IIT Bombay, he earned a doctorate in computer science from the Mila– Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute. He started his career with internships at Saavn, Tower Research Capital, and Waymo before joining Google Brain in 2018 as a Senior Research Scientist. Rishabh Agarwal later transitioned to Google DeepMind, where he focused on advancing large language models using reinforcement learning and self-improvement methods. His move to Meta’s new lab in April 2025 was seen as a major win for the company.Several Meta employees, including Meta director Chaya Nayak, have also left the company. Nayak joined OpenAI.