Editorial illustration for Meta AI Director Rohit Patel Exits to Take On Office and Workspace
Meta AI Director Launches Ndoc to Challenge Office
Meta AI Director Rohit Patel Exits to Take On Office and Workspace
Rohit Patel spent eight years building AI at Meta, most recently as a director at Meta Superintelligence Labs. Now he's gone, and TechCrunch has learned he's started something new: a company called Ndoc, built to go after Microsoft Office and Google Workspace directly.
Patel isn't the only name to leave Meta recently. Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan, AI researcher Andrew Tulloch, and Head of Product for AI-for-Work Emily Dalton Smith have all exited in the same stretch. Patel's departure adds another high-profile name to that list, but his next move is the more interesting part.
Ndoc isn't pitched as another AI feature bolted onto Excel or Slack. Patel wants to replace the scattered mess of Word docs, PowerPoint decks, Tableau dashboards, and pasted ChatGPT output with a single workspace, one that colleagues can open and use even if they never signed up for the product themselves. The design splits into three tabs, each handling a different piece of how people actually build and justify decisions at work.
That structure traces directly back to what Patel spent years doing inside Meta.
Patel designed Ndoc to be more than just another AI tool layered onto an existing workflow. The goal is to replace the fragmented way people work across tools like Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Tableau, Replit, and “ChatGPT copy-paste” with one unified workspace that all colleagues can access, even if they’re not signed up for Ndoc.
Why this matters
Patel's exit fits a pattern we've tracked at Meta Superintelligence Labs: Joel Kaplan, Andrew Tulloch, and now Emily Dalton's old AI-for-Work portfolio losing its director. When people who spent eight years inside a lab decide the bigger opportunity is outside it, that's worth noting even before the product ships. Ndoc's pitch, an open-sourced ".ndoc.html" format meant to replace the proprietary file formats Microsoft and Google have built moats around, is ambitious in a way most "AI wrapper" startups aren't.
Betting against the .docx and Google Docs defaults has killed better-funded companies than this one. But if Patel's open format actually gets adopted by other developers, it could matter more than another chat assistant bolted onto a spreadsheet. For founders, the lesson is that AI-native productivity tools are still wide open territory, Microsoft and Google haven't locked in the "AI first" workspace yet.
For researchers watching talent flow, this is another data point that Meta's AI bench is thinning at exactly the moment the company needs it deepest.
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Common Questions Answered
What is Ndoc and how does it differ from existing productivity tools like Microsoft Office?
Ndoc is a new unified workspace company founded by Rohit Patel designed to replace the fragmented way people work across multiple tools like Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and Tableau. Rather than being just another AI tool layered onto existing workflows, Ndoc aims to consolidate all these disparate applications into a single integrated platform that colleagues can access even without individual sign-ups.
Why did Rohit Patel leave Meta Superintelligence Labs to start Ndoc?
After spending eight years building AI at Meta, most recently as a director at Meta Superintelligence Labs, Patel identified a larger opportunity to directly compete with Microsoft Office and Google Workspace. His decision to leave and pursue this venture outside Meta suggests he believed the bigger growth potential existed in creating a unified workspace solution rather than continuing work within Meta's organization.
What is the significance of Ndoc's open-sourced '.ndoc.html' format?
Ndoc's '.ndoc.html' format is designed to replace the proprietary file formats that Microsoft and Google have built competitive moats around. This open-source approach represents an ambitious attempt to break the lock-in created by proprietary formats and democratize access to productivity tools across different platforms.
What pattern of departures has been occurring at Meta Superintelligence Labs?
Multiple high-level executives have recently left Meta Superintelligence Labs, including Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan, AI researcher Andrew Tulloch, and Emily Dalton Smith who headed the AI-for-Work portfolio. The departure of experienced leaders who spent years inside the lab to pursue opportunities outside suggests they may have identified significant gaps in Meta's current strategy or product offerings.
Further Reading
- The votes are in: TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 Audience Choice winners revealed - TechCrunch
- The complete Disrupt 2025 roundtable agenda - TechCrunch
- Meta Engineering Director Quits Big Tech for $6.6 Billion AI Startup Lovable - Business Insider
- Viktor raises $75M Series A to put AI coworkers in Slack and Teams - Dealroom
