Lilian Weng quit thinking machines for her health—only to lead recursive self-improvement at OpenAI
lilian weng left thinking machines citing burnout but immediately rejoined openai to lead research on recursive self-improvement, accelerating ai capabilities.
lilian weng, former vp of ai safety at openai and co-founder of thinking machines, cited health concerns from startup stress in her resignation. however, she quickly returned to openai to spearhead research into recursive self-improvement, where ai systems iterate to become more powerful. this abrupt pivot highlights the intense talent war between frontier labs and the high priority openai places on accelerating its own ai evolution.