Russ Salakhutdinov Celebrates Former PhD Students' Success at Top AI Labs
His former mentees founded Moonshot AI and joined OpenAI and xAI and Tesla
Entities: Russ Salakhutdinov, Zhilin Yang, Moonshot AI
In a widely shared X post, Carnegie Mellon professor Ruslan Salakhutdinov answered a recurring question about whether Moonshot AI founder Zhilin Yang had been his Ph.D. student: "The answer is yes." He then posted a longer list of former students he says have gone on to found or help build companies including Moonshot AI, xAI and Mistral, take research jobs at places like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta and Tesla AI, or become professors at MIT, Princeton, Peking University and Duke.
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I’ve been asked several times whether Zhilin Yang, the founder of @Kimi_Moonshot was my PhD student. The answer is yes and he is absolutely brilliant. But I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with so many outstanding PhD students over the years. So I thought I’d brag a little about them and their career paths (of course there are also many MSc and undergraduate students, sorry if I missed anyone): Founders / Founding Team Members Devendra Chaplot @dchaplot PhD, Founding Member Thinking Machines / Mistral Zhilin Yang PhD, Founder & CEO, Moonshot AI Jimmy Ba @jimmybajimmyba MSc/PhD, Co-founder xAI Hubert Tsai PhD, Co-founder Spuree, Apple Nitish Srivastava @nitishsr PhD, Co-founder Perceptual Machines; Co-founder Vayu Robotics Charlie Tang PhD, Co-founder Perceptual Machines, DE Shaw. Professors Paul Liang @pliang279 PhD, MIT Ben Eysenbach @ben_eysenbach PhD, Princeton University Ruosong Wang @RuosongW PhD, Peking University Bhuwan Dhingra @bhuwandhingra PhD, Duke University Roger Grosse @RogerGrosse Postdoc, University of Toronto Alexander Schwing Postdoc, UIUC Research Scientists Shuyan Zhou @shuyanzh36, Postdoc, Meta Superintelligence Lab Tiffany Min @SoYeonTiffMin PhD, Microsoft AI Murtaza Dalal @mihdalal PhD, Tesla AI Minji Yoon @MinjiYoon90 , PhD, Microsoft AI Shrimai Prabhumoye PhD, NVIDIA AI, Mistral Haitian Sun @sun_haitian PhD, Google DeepMind Emilio Parisotto PhD, Google DeepMind Lisa Lee PhD @rl_agent, Google DeepMind Manzil Zaheer @ManzilZaheer PhD, Google DeepMind Jamie Kiros PhD, Google Brain, OpenAI Yuri Burda PhD, OpenAI, Anthropic Cody Severinski PhD, Amazon
I was incredibly fortunate to be advised by the 🐐 @rsalakhu. When Russ agreed to co-advise me at CMU, my sadness about leaving Boston immediately disappeared. Once we worked together, I realized I was even luckier than I knew. Forever grateful and proud to be his student! 🐐🐐
I’ve been asked several times whether Zhilin Yang, the founder of @Kimi_Moonshot was my PhD student. The answer is yes and he is absolutely brilliant. But I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with so many outstanding PhD students over the years. So I thought I’d brag a little about them and their career paths (of course there are also many MSc and undergraduate students, sorry if I missed anyone): Founders / Founding Team Members Devendra Chaplot @dchaplot PhD, Founding Member Thinking Machines / Mistral Zhilin Yang PhD, Founder & CEO, Moonshot AI Jimmy Ba @jimmybajimmyba MSc/PhD, Co-founder xAI Hubert Tsai PhD, Co-founder Spuree, Apple Nitish Srivastava @nitishsr PhD, Co-founder Perceptual Machines; Co-founder Vayu Robotics Charlie Tang PhD, Co-founder Perceptual Machines, DE Shaw. Professors Paul Liang @pliang279 PhD, MIT Ben Eysenbach @ben_eysenbach PhD, Princeton University Ruosong Wang @RuosongW PhD, Peking University Bhuwan Dhingra @bhuwandhingra PhD, Duke University Roger Grosse @RogerGrosse Postdoc, University of Toronto Alexander Schwing Postdoc, UIUC Research Scientists Shuyan Zhou @shuyanzh36, Postdoc, Meta Superintelligence Lab Tiffany Min @SoYeonTiffMin PhD, Microsoft AI Murtaza Dalal @mihdalal PhD, Tesla AI Minji Yoon @MinjiYoon90 , PhD, Microsoft AI Shrimai Prabhumoye PhD, NVIDIA AI, Mistral Haitian Sun @sun_haitian PhD, Google DeepMind Emilio Parisotto PhD, Google DeepMind Lisa Lee PhD @rl_agent, Google DeepMind Manzil Zaheer @ManzilZaheer PhD, Google DeepMind Jamie Kiros PhD, Google Brain, OpenAI Yuri Burda PhD, OpenAI, Anthropic Cody Severinski PhD, Amazon
Paul Liang @pliang279 is the GOAT. If you're thinking about doing a PhD at MIT, I can't imagine a better advisor.
all of this is possible because Russ @rsalakhu is the best advisor anyone could ask for, by creating a supportive, collaborative environment grounded in technical rigor while always encouraging curiosity and exploration 🙏 https://twitter.com/rsalakhu/status/2078184317927219284
Thank you @yisongyue for kind words.
What @rsalakhu fails to mention of is that he's also great citizen of the community. #GeneralChair #ICML2024 https://twitter.com/rsalakhu/status/2078184317927219284
Russ is getting some hate online for his post, which I view as pretty wholesome. I had two hands-off advisors and it was incredible. The #1 thing they did for me is create an environment of exceptional peers and scientific excellence. I’m forever grateful for this.
I’ve been asked several times whether Zhilin Yang, the founder of @Kimi_Moonshot was my PhD student. The answer is yes and he is absolutely brilliant. But I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with so many outstanding PhD students over the years. So I thought I’d brag a little about them and their career paths (of course there are also many MSc and undergraduate students, sorry if I missed anyone): Founders / Founding Team Members Devendra Chaplot @dchaplot PhD, Founding Member Thinking Machines / Mistral Zhilin Yang PhD, Founder & CEO, Moonshot AI Jimmy Ba @jimmybajimmyba MSc/PhD, Co-founder xAI Hubert Tsai PhD, Co-founder Spuree, Apple Nitish Srivastava @nitishsr PhD, Co-founder Perceptual Machines; Co-founder Vayu Robotics Charlie Tang PhD, Co-founder Perceptual Machines, DE Shaw. Professors Paul Liang @pliang279 PhD, MIT Ben Eysenbach @ben_eysenbach PhD, Princeton University Ruosong Wang @RuosongW PhD, Peking University Bhuwan Dhingra @bhuwandhingra PhD, Duke University Roger Grosse @RogerGrosse Postdoc, University of Toronto Alexander Schwing Postdoc, UIUC Research Scientists Shuyan Zhou @shuyanzh36, Postdoc, Meta Superintelligence Lab Tiffany Min @SoYeonTiffMin PhD, Microsoft AI Murtaza Dalal @mihdalal PhD, Tesla AI Minji Yoon @MinjiYoon90 , PhD, Microsoft AI Shrimai Prabhumoye PhD, NVIDIA AI, Mistral Haitian Sun @sun_haitian PhD, Google DeepMind Emilio Parisotto PhD, Google DeepMind Lisa Lee PhD @rl_agent, Google DeepMind Manzil Zaheer @ManzilZaheer PhD, Google DeepMind Jamie Kiros PhD, Google Brain, OpenAI Yuri Burda PhD, OpenAI, Anthropic Cody Severinski PhD, Amazon
Russ is one of the most supportive and rewarding advisors to do a PhD with. His lab is full of so many cool ideas, passionate students, and fun discussions. I've appreciated your patience so much during my leave to join Thinky, Russ. I'll graduate and join the list soon!
I’ve been asked several times whether Zhilin Yang, the founder of @Kimi_Moonshot was my PhD student. The answer is yes and he is absolutely brilliant. But I’ve been incredibly fortunate to work with so many outstanding PhD students over the years. So I thought I’d brag a little about them and their career paths (of course there are also many MSc and undergraduate students, sorry if I missed anyone): Founders / Founding Team Members Devendra Chaplot @dchaplot PhD, Founding Member Thinking Machines / Mistral Zhilin Yang PhD, Founder & CEO, Moonshot AI Jimmy Ba @jimmybajimmyba MSc/PhD, Co-founder xAI Hubert Tsai PhD, Co-founder Spuree, Apple Nitish Srivastava @nitishsr PhD, Co-founder Perceptual Machines; Co-founder Vayu Robotics Charlie Tang PhD, Co-founder Perceptual Machines, DE Shaw. Professors Paul Liang @pliang279 PhD, MIT Ben Eysenbach @ben_eysenbach PhD, Princeton University Ruosong Wang @RuosongW PhD, Peking University Bhuwan Dhingra @bhuwandhingra PhD, Duke University Roger Grosse @RogerGrosse Postdoc, University of Toronto Alexander Schwing Postdoc, UIUC Research Scientists Shuyan Zhou @shuyanzh36, Postdoc, Meta Superintelligence Lab Tiffany Min @SoYeonTiffMin PhD, Microsoft AI Murtaza Dalal @mihdalal PhD, Tesla AI Minji Yoon @MinjiYoon90 , PhD, Microsoft AI Shrimai Prabhumoye PhD, NVIDIA AI, Mistral Haitian Sun @sun_haitian PhD, Google DeepMind Emilio Parisotto PhD, Google DeepMind Lisa Lee PhD @rl_agent, Google DeepMind Manzil Zaheer @ManzilZaheer PhD, Google DeepMind Jamie Kiros PhD, Google Brain, OpenAI Yuri Burda PhD, OpenAI, Anthropic Cody Severinski PhD, Amazon