BlockBeats report: On July 30, Lilian Weng, co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, announced her resignation due to health reasons—having been repeatedly ill over the past seven months and under excessive entrepreneurial pressure—only to return to OpenAI a few days later.
She will lead a team focused on research into "recursive self-improvement," a topic she has recently explored in depth on her blog, aiming to leverage AI to develop more powerful systems.
Weng Lilian previously served as Vice President of Safety Research and Head of the Applied AI Research team at OpenAI. In early 2025, she co-founded Thinking Machines Lab alongside former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati and others. This swift return highlights the mobility of top AI talent between high-intensity frontier labs.