AI whiz Yann LeCun is already targeting a $3.5 billion valuation for his new startup—and it hasn’t even launched yet

Yann LeCun, the legendary artificial intelligence researcher who helped build and shape Meta’s AI strategy, is already underway on his next big thing. Less than a month after announcing his departure from Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire, the 65-year-old Turing Award winner has launched fundraising talks that would value his new venture at roughly $3.5 billion before it’s even launched.​

The startup, Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI) Labs, aims to create what LeCun calls “world models”...