Who is Rishabh Agarwal? Check Education and Career Path of IIT Alumni who Quit Meta Superintelligence Job

Rishabh Agarwal, a prominent figure in artificial intelligence, has been in the news for unexpectedly leaving Meta’s revered Superintelligence team just five months after he joined. Agarwal has a strong pedigree, having graduated with a B.Tech from IIT Bombay and a PhD from Mila, Canada. He has gained notoriety for his research in deep reinforcement learning and large language models. His departure from a lucrative job at Meta, reportedly worth over $1 million a year, signals Agarwal's intention to pursue more meaningful paths of independent research, rather than following a path dominated by corporate interests. 

With his previous experience at Google Brain, DeepMind, and as an academic at McGill University, Agarwal has displayed an unconventionally brave and principled approach to innovation in artificial intelligence, where he deliberately chose risk and curiosity over comfort and certainty in one of technology' most cut-throat environments.

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Why Rishabh Agarwal’s Exit from Meta Is Making Headlines?

This is my last week at @AIatMeta. It was a tough decision not to continue with the new Superintelligence TBD lab, especially given the talent and compute density. But after 7.5 years across Google Brain, DeepMind, and Meta, I felt the pull to take on a different kind of risk.…

— Rishabh Agarwal (@agarwl_) August 25, 2025

Rishabh Agarwal’s exit from Meta’s Superintelligence team has garnered much attention throughout the tech industry. After 5 months at the prominent AI division, he opted to leave - despite speculation over a million-dollar compensation.

 A previous guest on NPR's The AI-Experts, Agarwal’s exit is notable not just because of his brief tenure or the lucrative offer, but because he left voluntarily for “a different kind of risk”, as he indicated via social media.

 This is a significant decision considering the extreme race for top AI talent among tech workhorses. Agarwal’s departure signals a change of pace for elite researchers, increasingly choosing their own personal, purpose-driven, self-fulfilling careers over a higher-dollar role at a larger company.

His choice is challenging older career value models in AI, and many are still contemplating the meaning of their career decisions.

Education Background of Rishabh Agarwal

Here is the full educational journey of Rishabh Agarwal that led to his successful career: 

Undergraduate Degree at IIT Bombay (2011-2015)

Rishabh Agarwal kicked off his educational journey by starting his undergraduate studies at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, which is one of India's best engineering colleges. Rishabh earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) when he started to develop interests in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

Research Experience During Undergraduate Studies 

Rishabh had research experiences during his time at IIT Bombay by participating in undergraduate research projects.  One of his first projects involved building an evaluation function for the game Scrabble, which started to explore Rishabh's interest in AI-based strategies and problem-solving methods.

PhD from Mila-Quebec, Canada (2016-2021)

After completing his undergraduate studies, Rishabh went on to pursue a PhD at Mila, Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, which is a world-class and renowned artificial intelligence research centre. 

While at Mila, Rishabh worked with two researchers, Aaron Courville and Marc G. Bellemare, who are well-known for their work in deep learning and reinforcement learning. 

While he was guiding Rishabh in applied machine learning methods, largely in reinforcement learning, research projects, and experiences at Mila, solidified Rishabh's knowledge and experience in AI and advanced ML techniques.

Career Details of Rishabh Agarwal

Early Career and Internships

Rishabh Agarwal began gaining professional experience during his undergraduate degree by securing internships. He interned at Saavan, Tower Research Capital, and Waymo, gaining valuable insights into real-world applications of AI, data systems, and large-scale computing from an early stage in his career and his undergraduate studies.

Google Brain: Senior Research Scientist (2018-2021)

After finishing his PhD, Agarwal joined Google Brain as a Senior Research Scientist. He led projects with a focus on deep reinforcement learning, one of the pillars of AI that teaches models how to learn through trial and error, similar to how humans learn.

 As a researcher at Google Brain, Agarwal's work was well-known, including being on a winning team for the Best Paper Award at NeurIPS 2021, which is one of the largest conferences in AI.

DeepMind: Research Scientist (2021-2025)

Agarwal next moved to Google DeepMind, one of the more recognizable AI research labs in the entire world. Agarwal worked at the lab on large language models (LLMs), self-improving systems, and model distillation.

Therefore, these areas contributed to more efficient, adaptable AI models/systems that require fewer external signals to learn.

Meta's Superintelligence Laboratory: AI Researcher (2025)

Rishabh Agarwal began working with Meta's Superintelligence Team in April 2025. The Superintelligence Team was a brand-new AI initiative within Meta tasked with creating next-generation artificial intelligence systems. 

It included some of the leading minds in AI and was part of Meta's larger advertising campaign, which aimed to demonstrate that it had a first-mover advantage in the race for AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).

Agarwal chose to leave the Superintelligence Team just five months later, notwithstanding its prestige and reported seven-figure salary. In a social media post, Agarwal described that he was seeking "different kinds of risk," and preferred to work on more meaningful things that were personally fulfilling, rather than high-profile positions at companies.