Mark Zuckerberg is betting greater than $14bn {that a} well-connected 28-year-old is the catalyst his firm must meet up with rivals racing to develop and commercialise synthetic intelligence.
The Meta chief struck a deal final week to purchase 49 per cent of information labelling enterprise Scale AI and rent its chief Alexandr Wang. Zuckerberg paid $14.3bn, marginally forward of Scale’s final valuation. However possession of the start-up is “principally incidental”, based on one Scale investor. The actual prize was Wang.
An govt at one in every of Meta’s greatest rivals mentioned the transfer got here after Zuckerberg determined Wang was the “wartime CEO” he wanted on the centre of the Large Tech group’s “superintelligence” lab — at a time when Meta was falling behind its AI rivals.
A maths prodigy and the kid of two Chinese language physicists, Wang, who co-founded Scale aged 19, is neither a celebrated AI researcher nor a prime engineer.
Based on a dozen individuals who have labored with and for Wang, or invested in Scale, he’s a extremely efficient operator who has shut connections throughout Silicon Valley.
“There are only a few firms which have deep relationships with each prime analysis staff: there’s Scale and Nvidia, and [Nvidia boss] Jensen [Huang] most likely wouldn’t take the job,” mentioned Dan Levine, a companion at enterprise capital agency Accel who was one of many first traders in Scale and stays on the corporate’s board.
Zuckerberg is hoping that Wang’s star energy will draw away one of the best expertise from rivals akin to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Protected Superintelligence (SSI) — the start-up headed by ex-OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
Meta is in talks to rent Dan Gross, one in every of SSI’s co-founders, and his investing companion Nat Friedman, based on an individual with information of the matter. The discussions, which had been first reported by The Info, are at a sophisticated stage and poaching the pair would symbolize a coup for Meta’s revamped AI division.
Gross and Friedman didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Wang’s actual present, based on a number of individuals who have labored with him, is a capability to domesticate highly effective allies each inside Silicon Valley and past. His social calendar has interspersed conferences with world leaders together with Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Narendra Modi, alongside journeys to New York’s Met Gala and Method 1 races.
His confidantes embrace OpenAI chief and one time housemate Sam Altman, the ChatGPT maker’s former chief know-how officer Mira Murati, and Michael Kratsios, President Donald Trump’s know-how adviser.
Wang has lengthy idolised Zuckerberg, based on somebody conversant in the matter, including that Scale had sought enterprise funding from Accel partly as a result of it was an early Fb investor.
For workers at Scale — who’ve joked internally that the corporate would take years to go public due to its excessive valuation — the deal represents a welcome windfall. Employees in Meta’s generative AI staff are much less impressed, based on an individual near the corporate, citing doubts over Wang’s technical prowess.
Meta is way from a impartial dealer within the AI race, and Wang’s skill to tug in favours is likely to be shortlived. His new submit places him in a conflict for expertise in opposition to the likes of Altman and Murati, who based her personal AI start-up referred to as Pondering Machines final 12 months.
Altman mentioned this week that Meta had tried to poach OpenAI builders with the promise of $100mn sign-on bonuses and even larger pay.
The huge outlay on new staff is an admission that Meta’s present AI technique was stuttering.
The corporate’s newest launch, Llama 4, underwhelmed on quite a lot of unbiased efficiency benchmarks. Wang’s title, and his relation to Yann LeCun — the pc scientist who leads Meta’s basic AI analysis efforts — has not but been decided, based on the corporate.
“That is the nice guess: crucial factor brief time period is the analysis staff they assemble rapidly,” mentioned somebody near Scale. “They’re making unbelievable provides and are attempting to rent a proficient staff as quickly as doable. Alex is aware of all of those individuals . . . It’s virtually like a heist.”
Others who know Wang see opportunism behind the relentless community constructing. “Wang is an operator, he desires to make as a lot cash as doable and make as large a reputation for himself as doable,” mentioned one former worker.
“He desires his identify on the whole lot, even when he isn’t throughout it or hasn’t achieved the work,” mentioned one other one who has labored carefully with Wang on quite a lot of tasks.
Scale contested that characterisation, describing Wang as laborious working and conscientious.
At Scale, Wang proved adept at studying the market and political winds. The beginning-up initially targeted on serving firms coaching autonomous autos, earlier than pivoting in 2019 to focus extra on synthetic intelligence. It rapidly grew to become probably the most outstanding of a bunch of firms doing the unglamorous work of labelling and categorising knowledge used to coach AI instruments akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
That has concerned hiring greater than 100,000 “gig” employees, many within the growing world, through a subsidiary referred to as Remotasks. It has extra lately used topic specialists to coach and check fashions in extremely specialised domains.
Scale mentioned a lot of the firm’s “contributors” at the moment are based mostly within the US.
Scale has pursued new enterprise with the US authorities and helped firms construct AI functions. That enterprise is rising quick, based on an individual near Scale, however the bulk of its $870mn in income final 12 months got here from labelling knowledge for the most important generative AI firms, together with Meta.
“Alex is rarely joyful together with his staff, by no means proud of himself. After I met him as a 19-year-old I observed his intelligence, however missed his relentless drive,” mentioned one early investor in Scale.
Wang has additionally grow to be a trusted messenger in Washington DC because of his adroit coverage stances, akin to excessive hawkishness on China and an advocacy for “merit-based” hiring over range.
Scale’s destiny is now unclear. New chief govt Jason Droege mentioned the Meta deal, which valued Scale at $29bn, validated the corporate’s strategy and was “not a pivot or a winding down.”
“We’ve an distinctive staff, a transparent imaginative and prescient, and the sources to realize actually exceptional issues,” he mentioned.
Within the near-term challenge Scale is preventing to retain its greatest clients, and reassure them that their knowledge can be ringfenced from Meta. OpenAI and Google have already signalled they’ll wean off Scale’s providers.
“Scale’s enterprise goes to break down, nobody desires to work with an organization Meta owns 49 per cent of, so [Meta] needed to pay what traders valued all the firm at within the final spherical,” mentioned one of many start-up’s backers.
Scale mentioned the corporate’s relationships with key clients stays robust, including that Meta’s funding signifies there may be actual worth within the remaining enterprise. OpenAI mentioned the corporate had been within the strategy of shifting off Scale for the previous few months. Google declined to remark.
Somebody near the corporate was extra bullish about Scale’s future with out Wang. “Our clients can’t actually go away us,” the individual mentioned. “We’re in a conflict and [Scale is] the arms vendor.”
Further reporting by Stephen Morris in San Francisco
