Forget the environment or job opportunities. AI’s latest casualty might be the health of the people building it.
Thinking Machines Lab cofounder Lilian Weng said she’s stepping down from her role because of stress and illness. Weng, who also spent time at OpenAI, didn’t disclose a specific diagnosis but said she’s been ill more often in the past seven months than at any other point in her life.
“I don’t feel I’m able to continue at the pace a startup requires,” Weng wrote in a note to colleagues.
She’s not alone, as evidenced by the internet’s response to her exit. The pressures of the highly competitive AI race are taking a toll on the people involved in it.
Earlier this year, OpenAI executive Fidji Simo took medical leave before stepping away completely from her full-time role to become a part-time advisor. Simo, who was also an executive at Meta and Instacart’s CEO, suffers from postural tachycardia syndrome, or POTS. The chronic illness causes heart palpitations, lightheadedness, and fainting.
XAI cofounder Greg Yang also shifted into an informal advisory role after he was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Yang said he’d sometimes sleep 12 hours a day but still couldn’t recover, adding that he needed to “go founder mode on my health.”
Could this be the start of a kinder, gentler era for tech employees?
The tech industry has spent the past few years touting the need to go “hardcore” and enter “founder mode” to compete. In theory, tech executives burning out from such a hectic pace should lead to a rethink of the entire strategy.
In theory, that is.
The reality is the AI race stops for no one. There are trillions of dollars at stake, and a general sense that any slowdown risks losing your competitive edge.
It’s also notable that the executives stepping away are often one level removed from the big boss. The CEOs, meanwhile, remain firmly in place.
One of the few recent health-related departures involving a big boss — C3.ai’s Tom Siebel — is also pretty telling. Siebel, who resigned in 2025 because of autoimmune disease-related vision problems, returned to the helm in May, telling CNBC the company’s performance was “candidly unacceptable.”
In the meantime, maybe read about how top leaders manage burnout.
Just be sure to get back to work quickly.
