Meta is on AI overdrive. After steadily losing talent to rivals and a faulty product launch during its developer event, Llamacon, in May, the social media giant is desperately trying to stay in the AI race. Its plan: if you can’t build internally, then go shopping.
Last week (June 10), Meta agreed to pick 49% stake in data-labelling firm Scale AI — a deal that brought the company’s founder Alexandr Wang under Meta’s fold. Now, per media reports, the social network is looking to bolster Mr. Wangs’ team.
After its failed attempt to buy OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever’s startup Safe Superintelligence Inc earlier this year, Meta has opened communication channels with SSI CEO Daniel Gross and ex-Github CEO Nat Friedman. It must be noted that both — Mr. Gross and Mr. Friedman — run a venture fund called NFDG.
Per media reports, the duo is expected to join Meta and report to Mr. Wang — Meta’s superintelligence department chief. Meta will also own a portion of NFDG under the terms.
Neither Mr. Gross nor Mr. Friedman have confirmed or denied talks with Meta.
Apart from this, Meta has also attempted poaching OpenAI’s AI researchers by offering some even upto $100 million as joining bonus
Mr. Sutskever’s startup SSI, per an April funding round, was valued at $32 billion. The firm was established by the Canadian computer scientist after he quit OpenAI over alignment issues.
