# November 7, 2025 – Zhejiang
## Soumith Chintala Steps Down from PyTorch Leadership
On **November 6, 2025**, PyTorch co‑founder **Soumith Chintala** announced he will step down as framework lead and leave Meta, the company where he has worked for **11 years**.
This marks a **new leadership chapter** for one of the world’s most widely used open‑source deep learning frameworks.
---
### Chintala’s Announcement
Chintala posted a statement on **Twitter**, highlighting PyTorch’s:
- Rise as a **core pillar in global AI research**
- Deployment in **exascale AI training**
- Role in foundational model development
- **90%+ adoption rate** among major AI companies
He confirmed an official departure date of **November 17**, stating:
> “I don’t want to do PyTorch for the rest of my life. I don’t want to be tied to one thing for decades like Guido or Linus.”
---
## Career at Meta — From SWE to VP in 8 Years
Soumith Chintala joined Meta’s **FAIR (Fundamental AI Research)** division and oversaw:
- AI infrastructure
- PyTorch development
- Generative AI engineering
### Context — Meta’s Organizational Changes
- **Alexandr Wang** became Chief AI Officer
- Speculation around **Yann LeCun** considering resignation
- **~600 layoffs** at the "Superintelligence Lab"
- Reductions in **FAIR research** and AI infrastructure teams
- Layoff of **Tian Yuandong**, Director of Research Science
Alexandr Wang said the goal was to **reduce communication overhead** and enable more responsibility and impact per individual.
### Chintala’s Contributions
Projects he influenced or led include:
- GAN research with **Emily Denton, Rob Fergus, Leon Bottou, Martin Arjovsky, Alec Radford**
- StarCraft AI with **Gabriel Synnaeve**
- Building FAIR’s first compute cluster with **Howard Mansell**
- Object detection work with **Adam Lerer** and **Piotr Dollar**
- Leading PyTorch creation and rollout
In his farewell note, he thanked **Yann LeCun** and **Rob Fergus** for building the early FAIR that inspired him.
---
### Quote from Farewell Statement
> “In my eleven years at Meta—almost my entire career—I’ve met many lifelong friends. Over the past eight years leading PyTorch, I took it from zero to over a 90% adoption rate in AI. Leaving is one of the toughest decisions I’ve ever made, but I leave with immense gratitude and fulfillment.
> PyTorch now supports exascale-level training; it powers foundational models that are redefining the boundaries of intelligence... The barriers I wanted to lower? They’ve almost disappeared.”
---
## PyTorch — A Community-Born Open-Source Success
PyTorch evolved from **Torch**, a Lua‑based scientific computing library (2005–2009), widely used by DeepMind, Twitter, FAIR, and others.
By 2015, Chintala and core Torch contributors envisioned **"Python-based Torch 2.0"**, leading to PyTorch in 2016 (open-sourced in 2017).
Key early contributors:
- **Soumith Chintala**
- **Adam Paszke**
- **Sam Gross**
- **Luca Antiga**
- **Piotr Dollar**
**Notable milestones:**
- First PyTorch‑Distributed built by Adam Paszke and classmates as a course project
- Merge with **Caffe2** led by **Jia Yangqing** for greater team stability and funding
- Engineering quality rules: "commits must be made by Facebook engineers"
---
### Focus on Users, Not Metrics
While others chased market share, PyTorch’s early team:
- Monitored ~500 discussions daily (Chintala personally participated)
- Maintained feedback loops with high‑value users
- Practiced **user co‑creation and open iteration**
Quote:
> “We use download numbers and citation counts to verify direction, but we never let them ‘drive’ the team toward building a feature.”
---
## Farewell — “Starting from Zero”
Chintala’s departure drew tributes—including **Andrej Karpathy**:
> “Fantastic work, Soumith… PyTorch hit the perfect combination in the ‘20-dimensional design space’ at exactly the right time. Wishing you a new golden era.”
**Yann LeCun** also offered best wishes:
Chintala’s next chapter:
- Start small
- Explore **areas outside his expertise**
- Avoid long-term regret by **venturing beyond Meta**
He expressed confidence in successors:
- **Greg, Alban, Ed, Jason, Joe** (decision-making alignment)
- Engineering leaders **Suo, John, Jana** (strong infrastructure)
Special thanks to **Mark Zuckerberg** and **Mike Schroepfer** for supporting open source as business strategy.
---
**Reference:**
[https://soumith.ch/blog/2025-11-06-leaving-meta-and-pytorch.md.html](https://soumith.ch/blog/2025-11-06-leaving-meta-and-pytorch.md.html)
---
## Broader Implications
PyTorch’s journey illustrates:
- **Open collaboration**
- **Agile iteration**
- **Responsive community engagement**
Similar principles now power emerging AI ecosystems, like **[AiToEarn官网](https://aitoearn.ai/)** — an open-source global AI content monetization platform integrating:
- AI content generation
- Cross-platform publishing
- Analytics and model ranking
Supported platforms: Douyin, Kwai, WeChat, Bilibili, Xiaohongshu, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, and X (Twitter).
---
## Recommended Reads
- [Programming language migration lessons — 90% of decisions unrelated to tech](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MjM5MDE0Mjc4MA==&mid=2651261719&idx=1&sn=79ea2d73dc081c61e1ca92909102aeb3&scene=21#wechat_redirect)
- [Apple’s App Store code leak shakes developer community](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MjM5MDE0Mjc4MA==&mid=2651261553&idx=1&sn=ccfb3a9e4ef1112c23153394230f83b7&scene=21#wechat_redirect)
- [Top architects on why future roles require AI literacy](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MjM5MDE0Mjc4MA==&mid=2651261277&idx=1&sn=c6da3cd7b43a8e8948c673248f3cd070&scene=21#wechat_redirect)
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---
## Event Preview — Tencent Cloud Wuxi Summit
**Date:** November 21
**Salon:** *“Tengyun Going Abroad”*
Topics:
- Compliance insights
- Trend interpretations
- All-in-one outbound solutions
[Read Original](https://qdrl.qq.com/kJkqm8st) or scan QR code:
---
### Closing Note
In the context of globalization and AI transformation, creators seek efficient multi-platform distribution.
Open-source tools like **[AiToEarn官网](https://aitoearn.ai/)** enable:
- AI content generation
- Simultaneous publishing to major platforms
- Analytics and monetization
Helping creators scale and sustain their work globally.
---
**Video:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wprKvXnErE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wprKvXnErE)
**BAAI Hub:** [https://hub.baai.ac.cn/view/29924](https://hub.baai.ac.cn/view/29924)
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