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In an attempt to build a canny team and scale AI initiatives, Meta (NASDAQ:META) turned to Daniel Gross, the CEO of Ilya Sutskever’s startup Safe Superintelligence, and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, The Information reported, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.
Safe Superintelligence is an AI startup founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever. Earlier this year, Meta (NASDAQ:META) tried to acquire Safe Superintelligence, the sources said, which was reportedly valued at $32B. However, Sutskever rebuffed, including an offer to join the company.
Soon after those talks ended, Zuckerberg started negotiating with Daniel Gross the CEO of Safe Superintelligence, the sources said. He is now set to join the social media giant and will work with Alexandr Wang of Scale AI, the startup Meta acquired last week for $14.3 billion.
In addition to Gross, Meta will bring in Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub and Gross’s longtime collaborator. Both Gross and Friedman co-manage the venture capital firm NFDG, and Meta (META) is expected to acquire a stake in this firm as part of the arrangement. According to the report, NFDG has invested in AI startups.
Meta (META) “will share more about our superintelligence effort and the great people joining this team in the coming weeks,” a company spokesperson said.
The social media giant’s (META) aggressive recruitment and investment moves are part of a broader push to strengthen its position in the competitive AI market by securing top talent.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said on a podcast hosted by his brother that Meta (META) has tried to get OpenAI employees by offering signing bonuses as high as $100 million.
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