Qwen Team Exodus Threatens Top Open-Weight Model Family

Junyang Lin, Alibaba's lead Qwen researcher and one of their youngest P10 employees, resigned along with key team members Binyuan Hui (Coder series), Bowen Yu (Instruct/post-training), and Kaixin Li. The departures came weeks after Qwen 3.5's release — models practitioners call "the most capable agentic coding model at that size." Root cause: tension between the research team and Alibaba's product division pushing DAU metrics for the Qwen App over research priorities. This threatens one of the strongest open-weight model families at a critical moment. Action: If you depend on Qwen models, continue using them but diversify your model strategy. Watch for where the departing researchers land. Simon Willison | HN 734pts