Meta's AI chief lists reasons why he refused to join Google in 2002: 'Salary was low'

Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun had won the Turing Prize for his research in 2018. (Image credit: @ylecun/X)

Meta's chief AI scientist Yann LeCun has recently revealed that he turned down a job offer from Google in 2002 for several reasons, one among them being low pay. In a post on X, the 63-year-old said that he was offered the role of director of research at Google.

LeCun, who won the Turing Prize for his research in 2018, said the compensation package offered to him was low and even though "the stock option package would have ended up stratospheric," he needed money at the time to support his teenage sons.

"The salary was low. Obviously, the stock option package would have ended up stratospheric. But we had teenage sons getting close to college and needed cash. Housing is more expensive in Silicon Valley than in New Jersey," LeCun wrote on X.

Another reason why he did not take up the tech giant's offer was its employee strength.

"Google had 600 employees and no revenue at the time (this was January 2002, before ads, Gmail, etc). You can't really do real research at that stage. My job would have involved a lot of corporate strategy, technology development for products, management, etc. I wanted to refocus on basic research in ML, vision, robotics, and computational neuroscience," LeCun added.

A number of reasons: 1. Google had 600 employees and no revenue at the time (this was January 2002, before ads, gmail, etc). You can't really do real research at that stage. My job would have involved a lot of corporate strategy, technology development for products, management,…

— Yann LeCun (@ylecun) January 3, 2024

LeCun also said he wanted to refocus on research in several areas, including machine learning, and taking up the job offer would have meant moving to California -- a move his family was not comfortable with.

Meta's chief AI scientist, however, said that if he had accepted the role at Google, he may have made the research culture at the company "a bit more open and a bit more ambitious a bit earlier."

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