Alibaba Qwen Team Exodus: Tech Lead and Key Researchers Depart After Qwen 3.5 Launch

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Junyang Lin (tech lead), Yu Bowen (post-training head), and Huibin (Qwen Code lead, already at Meta since January) departed Alibaba's Qwen team within 24 hours of the Qwen 3.5 launch. A colleague's post — "I know leaving wasn't your choice" — suggests a forced restructuring from vertical to horizontal team organization. Lin had publicly warned China was unlikely to leapfrog OpenAI/Anthropic in 3-5 years. Alibaba shares dropped 5.3% intraday, their biggest loss since October. This is the most sig