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Another exit for Meta: Chaya Nayak moves to OpenAI
Amid a broader wave of departures, at least three researchers hired for Meta’s newly launched Superintelligence Labs (MSL) have resigned within months
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Malvika Choudhary - Thu, 28, Aug 2025
- 13:54 EDT
- 32
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Chaya Nayak / LinkedIn (@chayanayak)
Indian-origin engineer Chaya Nayak announced her resignation from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, to join OpenAI.
Her departure marks another significant loss for Mark Zuckerberg as the company sees an exodus of top artificial intelligence talent.
Also Read: Indian-origin AI expert exits Meta after five months
A long-time Meta executive, Nayak reflected on her nearly decade-long journey at the company in a LinkedIn post, recalling how she began with the Data for Good initiative. “ What started as a bold experiment grew into the foundation of my career,” she wrote.
During her tenure, Nayak led several high-profile projects, including Disaster Maps to support communities in crisis, and the Facebook Open Research and Transparency (FORT) team, which focused on responsible data sharing through data clean rooms and differential privacy. She also contributed to research on Meta’s impact on democracy, publishing studies in journals such as Science.
Most recently, Nayak played a central role in Meta’s generative AI efforts. “In the last 2.5 years, I worked on GenAI – building three generations of Llama and Meta AI, solving hard problems at incredible speed, and imagining what the next wave of AI could mean for society,” she wrote.
Announcing her next step, Nayak said, “Today, I’m joining OpenAI to work with Irina Kofman on Special Initiatives – exploring new opportunities at the frontier of AI. It feels like the perfect next chapter: to take everything I’ve learned, and pour it into work that will help define what comes next for technology and society.”
Nayak holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Data Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s degree in Global Studies and Spanish from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where she graduated summa cum laude.
Meta exodus
Amid a broader wave of departures, at least three researchers hired for Meta’s newly launched Superintelligence Labs (MSL) have resigned within months—despite being recruited with lavish, reportedly nine-figure compensation packages. The exits have raised questions over the stability of Zuckerberg’s marquee AI initiative.
AI researchers Avi Verma and Ethan Knight left less than a month after joining MSL, returning to OpenAI, where both previously worked.
Meanwhile, Rishabh Agarwal, who joined Meta in April on a million-dollar salary, announced his exit after five months. In a public post, he called the decision “tough,” citing the team’s “talent and compute density,” but added that he felt the pull to “take on a different kind of risk.”
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