Meta tried to acquire OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever’s startup Safe Superintelligence, but was turned down.
After the failed acquisition, Meta hired Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross.
Both new hires will work under Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang at Meta.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been investing heavily in artificial intelligence lately, and his latest hires are a testament to this. After investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI last week and bringing on its founder Alexandr Wang, Zuckerberg has now reportedly brought two prominent figures onboard: Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman.
SurveyDaniel Gross is the CEO of Safe Superintelligence, an AI startup launched by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. According to CNBC, Meta had earlier tried to buy Safe Superintelligence, which was reportedly valued at around $32 billion in a fundraising round in April. However, Sutskever turned down both the acquisition offer and Meta’s attempt to hire him.
After that deal failed, Meta reportedly shifted focus to hiring Gross. Along with Gross, Nat Friedman, former GitHub CEO and Gross’s business partner at venture firm NFDG, is also joining Meta. According to the report, both Gross and Friedman will work under Wang at Meta, and the tech giant is also said to get a stake in NFDG.
Also read: Microsoft eyes more job cuts as it shifts focus to AI and data centers
Meta would be sharing more information about its superintelligence efforts and the new team members in the coming weeks.
Meta isn’t alone, other tech giant also making similar moves
Meta’s move is part of the AI hiring battle between top tech companies like Meta, Google, OpenAI and Microsoft. These companies are racing to build powerful AI models. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said on a podcast that Meta offered huge signing bonuses of $100 million to lure people from his company, although none of his top employees have accepted the offers so far.
Meta’s hiring spree isn’t the only big move in the AI world. OpenAI itself paid $6.5 billion to bring in iPhone designer Jony Ive and buy his startup. Google and Microsoft have also made major hires and acquisitions to strengthen their AI teams.
Also read: Amazon to cut more jobs as AI boosts efficiency, says CEO Andy Jassy
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Ayushi Jain
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