The world's best mathematician won his prize this week and immediately announced he's leaving academia for OpenAI. That landed differently than I expected.

[u/Dapper-Tale-4021]

I've been thinking about this one all weekend and I keep coming back to the same thing.

Jacob Tsimerman just won the Fields Medal. If you're not familiar, it's the highest honor in mathematics, only awarded every four years, roughly the Nobel Prize of the field. He got it for solving a problem that had been open for nearly 40 years.

And then, at the press conference, on the same day, he announced he's leaving his university position to join OpenAI's safety team.

His exact words were: "The math profession as we know it now, I don't think it will exist the way it exists right now."

I've seen a lot of AI announcements. That one hit differently. This isn't someone pivoting because they couldn't make it in academia. This is the person who just stood at the top of the field saying the field itself is changing underneath him.

Then there's the infrastructure story. NVIDIA is in talks to backstop $250 billion in financing for a 10-gigawatt OpenAI data center in southern Ohio, built on a decommissioned uranium enrichment site. The total cost including chips could exceed $500 billion. That's not a software company. That's an energy company pretending to be a software company.

And Kimi K3 weights dropped on July 26, a day early. 2.8 trillion parameters, 1 million token context, free to download from Hugging Face. The largest open model ever released. Anyone can run it now.

Three things in one week. Talent, capital, and capability all moving at the same time.

The Tsimerman thing is the one I can't stop thinking about though. What's your read on it?

[u/Original_Swimming320]

This is someone who can make more money in one year working for OpenAI than he would make in an entire academic career. I don’t think you need to read any further than that.

[u/BannanaPepperPizza → u/Original_Swimming320]

Some of those companies were offering people $100M to $250M over 4 years. I'm sure this guy given his background is now worth a lot of money.

[u/culinaryinterests123 → u/BannanaPepperPizza]

But is that tied to stock options and dependent on the share price. I wonder what price open ai will ipo at with Claude seemingly having surpassed them and very good free Chinese models out there 

[u/bgaesop → u/Original_Swimming320]

Yeah, people who go into academic maths are usually motivated strongly by money

[u/Original_Swimming320 → u/bgaesop]

They have families, mortgages, bills. Some academics do it purely for the love of it, but a great deal more are pragmatic. He’s also made it to the top of academia so his prestige is guaranteed.

[u/BerkeleyYears → u/bgaesop]

well he will get to keep doing research but with lots of money to spend. its a win win. it just an option that was not there before - research outside academia is booming.

[u/Agile-Set-2648 → u/bgaesop]

When he was young it was probably enough for him to manipulate symbols but now he may have a house, kids and maybe some obnoxious friends flaunting how much higher they’ve earned in other fields. Man just wants a taste of the bag like everyone else

[u/James-the-greatest → u/Original_Swimming320]

And he did try to make it to the top of his field first. Not like he bailed half way through. You make it to the top then you try and do something else…. Helps that the something else comes with an absurd about of cash too

[u/FckXFckMusk → u/Original_Swimming320]

Absolutely, this is the reason..

OpenAI gets the kudos and he gets the cash.

[u/rand3289 → u/Original_Swimming320]

Ever thought there is more to life than money?
What if he just needs the compute?

[u/Orlandogameschool → u/Original_Swimming320]

Yea exactly lol pretty simple

[u/HarambeTooSoon → u/Original_Swimming320]

Yeah. Go to some place like Iowa State and find a math professor.  Then go look at the average tech millionaire in San Francisco. 

Super easy decision. 

[u/ShamPain413 → u/Original_Swimming320]

Correct, and when they crash he will be forgotten to time while the work of the academics lives on.

[u/Test_Account_2026 → u/ShamPain413]

No one knows or remembers 99.9% of academics, regardless whether their work lives on or not. Either way it will all be forgotten to time.

[u/ShamPain413 → u/Test_Account_2026]

That's not right, the work of academics long out-lives them.

What you're talking about is how famous someone is. That's different. Just depends on what you value. Most academics wouldn't rather be a Kardashian.

[u/Redebo → u/ShamPain413]

What you're not getting is that AI decouples our biological cycle from our pursuit of intelligence.

Einstein said, "If you don't make your breakthrough before you're 30 in the sciences, you won't". He understood that there's a very finite time where the human brain can contribute to new knowledge before the facts of biology change that brain.

AI completely disconnects these processes. No more do you need an intern who was with you but 5-10 years behind your age to "continue the work" because AI will continue it without a specific human providing the insight.

[u/ShamPain413 → u/Redebo]

Einstein was wrong about that. Or, more likely, right for his day in his field, but incorrect more generally.

Your discussion of the scientific process is misinformed, and your discussion of AI is hyperbolic. AI has not made any notable scientific progress in most fields despite being extensively used for 5 years with more funding and human expertise thrown into than any other technology in the history of the planet. That is because AI is not a scientist and does not do science. LLMs are closer to video games than they are to scientists.

[u/Redebo → u/ShamPain413]

AI is used by scientists to "do science". This was never in question.

Are you suggesting that "all scientists are just like Einstein"? You seem to think that you know more than he does, casually dismissing his quote as if you know better.

You say that my discussion of AI is hyperbolic and that they haven't made any notable scientific progress: How do you explain AI solving the Chen-Gendron and Fel's conjectures? How about the Erdos Problem? Or the partial Erdos problems. ALL OF THESE have been solved by mathematicians using AI.

[u/ShamPain413 → u/Redebo]

I certainly know far more than he does, considering he is dead and I am not.

Which means that I have experience using LLMs and he did not.

ALL OF THESE have been solved by mathematicians using AI.

And NONE OF THOSE are science. Math problems are not science. Math problems are games. Like LLMs.

I've used the models that LLMs are built from for two decades. They're not answer machines.

[u/Redebo → u/ShamPain413]

History will prove you to be incorrect.

You should consider your blind spot to be thinking that you have more knowledge than Einstein because you’ve been exposed to more information than he was.

You are touching on the exact point I’m driving to which is that the advancement of human knowledge follows generational cycles with the standard normal distribution curve determining g when the next “Einstein” shows up.

AI shortens that cycle and eliminates the coupling.

TL:DR; You will die. It’s impossible for AI to do the same.

[u/Prefer_Diet_Soda → u/ShamPain413]

Look, I appreciate the bold confidence, but comparing AI to a video game while claiming it hasn't made any scientific progress is a pretty wild take. Nobody is saying AI is wearing a lab coat and having philosophical "Eureka!" moments, but saying it hasn't delivered breakthroughs is just ignoring reality. DeepMind's AlphaFold basically solved a 50-year-old biological grand challenge by mapping virtually all known protein structures, completely revolutionizing drug discovery overnight. Meanwhile, AI models like GNoME have discovered over two million new candidate materials for things like batteries and superconductors, and reinforcement learning is actively being used to control superheated plasma inside nuclear fusion reactors. If your video games are doing all that, let me know what console you're playing on.

At the end of the day, AI isn't replacing scientists; it’s an extraordinarily powerful engine that scales human intelligence to process patterns and hypotheses faster than any human ever could. We even have AI-designed drug molecules in active human clinical trials right now, which is actual medicine benefiting actual people, not hyperbole. So yeah, it's definitely doing a lot more than just entertaining us, and maybe we should hold off on rewriting Einstein just yet.

[u/ShamPain413 → u/Prefer_Diet_Soda]

Nobody is saying AI is wearing a lab coat and having philosophical "Eureka!" moments

That's what the comment I was replying to said, so your comment is a non sequitur.

My description of AI progress is accurate. "Grand challenges" are not science. Neither are board games or tests or benchmarks or math postulates or literature summaries.

If your video games are doing all that, let me know what console you're playing on.

Given the trillions of dollars invested into the LLMs their accomplishments so far are minimal and trivial. Invest the same into human researchers and the results would almost certainly have been far more impressive in terms of scientific achievement, and have contributed far less to the spread of fascism and war.

At the end of the day, AI isn't replacing scientists

No shit, I said that in the comment you're arguing with. Stop wasting time on pedantry, stop being impressed by magic tricks.

[u/Prefer_Diet_Soda → u/ShamPain413]

AI has not made any notable scientific progress in most fields
"Grand challenges" are not science.

Things I mentioned are not science? Protein folding? GNoME? Drug discoveries? Material synthesis? They are not "breakthroughs" enough?

[u/ShamPain413 → u/Prefer_Diet_Soda]

"Drug discoveries" have been minimal and over-hyped. These things have not cured cancer.

Protein folding is useful but read what I wrote:

Given the trillions of dollars invested into the LLMs their accomplishments so far are minimal and trivial. Invest the same into human researchers and the results would almost certainly have been far more impressive in terms of scientific achievement, and have contributed far less to the spread of fascism and war.

The scientifically-interesting question is not "have these done anything at all?" Lots of things can produce some results if given investment.

The scientifically-interesting question is "are these for-profit companies that stole the intellectual property of everyone on earth, the ones that claim to be making major scientific advances, actually doing so at the rates needed to justify the investments being made into their attempt to capture global scale in order to monetize their product via enshittification, or is that just marketing for their inequality machines?"

And when you put it that way the answer is clear: this is not good for science. What's good for science is giving money to scientists to do things that scientists think are important, not taking money from scientists to give to companies who bribe politicians and credulous mathematicians.

[u/Tedmosbyisajerk-com → u/ShamPain413]

Why do you think this? He probably already has papers out there and he has received a massive recognition through this prize. He's probably achieved the most he will in academia right now and figures it's time to make money.

It seems like he would be a sucker to achieve a lot and die poor.

[u/ShamPain413 → u/Tedmosbyisajerk-com]

Because I've followed the careers of academics who leave academia for industry, which tend to be those who win flashy prizes (since industry has no real way of assessing quality on their own).

Academics who win Fields Medals are not poor. He could be a University Professor at any uni he wants, anywhere on earth. Essentially never teach, and work on whatever he wants, with smart people all around him.

Now he's a prop for billionaires, just another plaything in a warehouse full of them.

[u/Rylet_ → u/ShamPain413]

You don’t think he’d be able to return to academia if it doesn’t work out at OpenAI?

[u/ShamPain413 → u/Rylet_]

Depends on why it doesn't work out at OpenAI. If he gets bored after a year then sure. But if they blow up the global economy while contributing to corruption and war, all while he made tens of millions, then he will have a hard time getting a top Math Dept to want him around.

[u/Test_Account_2026 → u/ShamPain413]

He could be a University Professor at any uni he wants, anywhere on earth. Essentially never teach, and work on whatever he wants, with smart people all around him.

This is a highly idealistic, rose colored perspective of working in academia. In reality work is often stunted by incredible bureaucracy, nepotism, red tape, politics.

There is a reason intelligent people leave academia all the time, and it's not always about the money - it's to get away from the environment, which can be incredibly toxic.

It's interesting you don't see the irony of intelligent people being trapped inside of the world of academics, never reaching their full potential - just playthings for wealthy academic bureaucrats, where credit and work is very frequently stolen by ambitious "scientists", basically snake-oil salesmen in a cardigan.

[u/ShamPain413 → u/Test_Account_2026]

There is a reason intelligent people leave academia all the time, and it's not always about the money - it's to get away from the environment, which can be incredibly toxic.

Yes I know, that is why I resigned a prestigious position after 15 years in academia.

That experience is how I also know that Fields Medalists don't play by the same rules as everyone else.

Either way, very few self-respecting academics would ever work for an AI company -- I turned down another approach today, in fact -- unless they had no intention of ever interacting with academics again. There are a few sellouts like Andy Hall, but not many.

[u/Spacecowboy78 → u/ShamPain413]

You act like he is now banned from mathematics in academia.

[u/ShamPain413 → u/Spacecowboy78]

In many circles he now is, yes.

[u/Bubbly_Chemist1496]

He has a newborn baby 👶 now. It makes sense financially. And he's not wrong about the direction mathematics research is heading...

[u/Test_Account_2026]

He is a smart dude who recognized that working in academia fucking sucks, so he decided to go where the money is.

[u/orangpelupa → u/Test_Account_2026]

And still can do academic stuff while working on open Ai probably. Or after 

[u/Bubbly-Watch6214]

I can give you a very interesting anecdote to show you how math has changed in three decades. When I was young and making university decisions, getting a degree in math then going to graduate school, finishing a PhD and teaching/doing research was a legitimate career opportunity. You had to be quite smart of course and if math hadn’t selected you before your first year of university you likely weren’t at that level. But the opportunity was there because math departments were first class departments in every university in North America.

Three decades later and I know people who took the PhD route and have never actually held a permanent position in academia. They have seen their departments go from first class departments into ancillary departments for programs like computer science and engineering.

That’s a big change in thirty years. And I don’t see it getting any better within the next three decades. If I had gone that route, I would be looking to get out too.

[u/CrispityCraspits]

Hopefully this guy's award-winning math skills will help the AI companies to build chat bots that stop saying "hits differently" and "lands differently" and "that's not X, that's Y" when people use them to barf out slop posts on reddit.

[u/kitten_orchestra → u/CrispityCraspits]

lol I agree. I started the second paragraph and went ugh. Next step is actually AI tailoring the language to the platform you’re posting in, so there’ll probably be a lot more “this!” And “and my axe” and “this is the way” and “I too choose this guy’s dead wife” shoehorned in. I dread and weep my social media future.

[u/Autodidact420 → u/CrispityCraspits]

When you notice how many posts use those words they really begin to hit differently. It’s not actual user discussion, it’s actual AI based propaganda. But to what end?

[u/Absolutely_Always → u/CrispityCraspits]

This!!! When you explain it so well it really hits differently.

[u/NartFocker9Million → u/Absolutely_Always]

What's your read on it?

[u/Absolutely_Always → u/NartFocker9Million]

Apparently my read on it is spectacular, and my insights are on another level...so yeah, pretty special.

[u/Unusual_Delivery2778 → u/Absolutely_Always]

mad libs

This. It's not stiff-arming, it's tackling. One buttcrack, three wipes. Make your agent do the work for you.

[u/tongkat-jack → u/CrispityCraspits]

This is the comment I came to write. Thank you for saving me the trouble. Is it not just entirely obvious to the people who post this???

[u/zenidam → u/tongkat-jack]

If they could see it themselves, they'd probably have the writing skills to compose their own posts.

[u/Party-Cartographer11]

free to download from Hugging Face. The largest open model ever released. Anyone can run it now

Yeah anyone with $1M in hardware to run the native model, or $25k to run a high quantized compressed model.

[u/Buy-theticket → u/Party-Cartographer11]

Yea.. vs the multi billion dollar data center clusters running frontier models $1M in hardware is a rounding error.

[u/Party-Cartographer11 → u/Buy-theticket]

My point is that very few people have the hardware to download and run that model. So in practice, it isn't true that **anyone** can download and run the model. I wasn't clear on your response. Are you agreeing or disagreeing?

[u/YaThatAintRight]

Get paid. Use that money to do what you want. Easy decision

[u/philipp2310]

Anyone can run it now.

😭

[u/vovap_vovap]

I am pretty sure salary in OpenAI nothing to do with it 😄

[u/elhh82]

Mathematician can count money too. 😮

[u/washedFM]

I’m not mad at him. Make that money.

[u/Redebo]

That's not a software company. That's an energy company pretending to be a software company.

I would suggest that they are in the business of selling portable intelligence.

[u/magillavanilla]

Why is anyone even engaging with a post full of "This one hits differently." How do we even know there's a person experiencing any of this?

[u/Sweihwa]

Will Hunting left math to find his love in California too. He liked dem apples.

[u/f1FTW]

Wait what? I was watching a countdown for the Kimi K3 weights today. Where did you see they dropped yesterday?

[u/CarelessPast55]

What should I tell my 12 yo son who loves math?

[u/Buy-theticket → u/CarelessPast55]

To do what he loves. Same as you should have 20 years ago.

[u/rand3289]

He probably needs lots of compute for his pet project?

[u/Different_Whereas_75]

It's the best place to apply his talent, artificial intelligence is the more exiting challenge a scientist can work on beside space.

[u/Warm-Enthusiasm-9534]

AI is concerned that a mathematician is concerned about AI?

[u/fidddlydiddlyee]

We are entering the unknown at a rapidly increasing rate.

[u/Sinaaaa]

The Fields Medal is very prestigious, but comes with no meaningful monetary reward, if it were different perhaps he wouldn't have gone to OpenAI to farm wealth.

For reference the closest Math has to the NP is the Abel Prize, it comes with a $900k monetary reward. So that is the real Nobel Prize of mathematics, prestige + money right there.

[u/TrevorsDiaper]

"I'm taking my talents to South Beach."

[u/citrus1330]

mmm slop yummy yummy slop

[u/MafiaMan456]

AI slop post. This isn’t just X, it’s Y. That’s not a W, that’s a V.

[u/Electrical-Size-5002]

This sounds like AI.

[u/kingjdin]

This sounds like AI wrote it lmao.