Meta’s chief AI Scientist, Yann LeCun, believes that aspiring AI entrepreneurs in India should get an academic degree like a PhD or Masters, particularly in fields as technical and complex as artificial intelligence before building a startup.
In a recent interview with Zerodha cofounder Nikhil Kamath, LeCun, speaking about the importance of formal training in innovation, said, “Doing a PhD or graduate studies trains you to invent new things and ensures that your methodology prevents you from fooling yourself into thinking you’re being an innovator when you’re not.”
LeCun added that while a PhD is not a strict requirement for success, it offers significant advantages for entrepreneurs. “It gives you a different perspective,” he said. “In a complex, deeply technical area like AI, it’s useful to learn about what exists out there, what’s possible, and what’s not possible.”
For those considering starting their own AI ventures, LeCun said, “You might succeed without it, but it gives you more legitimacy in hiring talented people, and it might make it easier to raise funding if you have published papers showing you’ve invented something new.”
He further advised young entrepreneurs and startups to experiment with open-source models like Meta’s Llama and said that companies can fine-tune the model for particular verticals such as healthcare and education.
During his recent visit to India, where he toured IIT Madras and AI4Bharat, he was impressed by projects focusing on language translation and cultural preservation, such as IndicTrans2, which uses Llama. “AI is going to help inspire,” he said, particularly in regions with diverse languages and cultural complexities.”
While speaking on a panel at Meta’s Build with AI Summit in Bengaluru alongside Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and People+AI head Tanuj Bhojwani, LeCun discussed the idea of positioning India as the AI use-case capital of the world.
Nilekani added, “We think that we can build on top of digital public infrastructure,” adding that this foundation enables a faster transition to AI—a concept he previously described as “DPI to the power of AI.”
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