Angelina YangFounder and Host, TwoSetAI · AI builder for visibility and discoverability

She Led Meta's Top AI Team — Then Left to Build Her Own Thing

17 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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In this interview excerpt, the former senior director of Generative AI at Meta explains his decision to leave a top‑tier research leadership position. He describes his role overseeing the multimodal research team, coordinating efforts across the organization, and ensuring communication. Over time, he began to miss the direct, hands‑on work of driving research forward, feeling that his responsibilities had shifted toward administrative coordination and problem‑solving rather than deep technical involvement. This personal desire to return to the “weeds” of research motivated his consideration of a career change.

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You had arguably the best research job in AI space. So what made you personally decide to do this?
So yeah, you're right. I was a senior director in GenAI. GenAI at the time was sort of the top priority organization at Meta. I was leading all of the multimodal research team. So yeah, awesome people, awesome work happening. The company cared about it. So that was all great. I think for me personally, as I grew in my role, I was sort of starting to miss driving the work itself, being more in the weeds. My position had become more and more of making sure the right people are talking to each other and like stuff isn't falling through the cracks and someone might be complaining about something on any given day. So I just missed being in the weeds, being in the details and sort of driving the work itself forward. So that was sort of my personal motivation to consider a change.