Meta's AI Acquisition: Zuckerberg's Plan to Dominate the AI Race with New Talent and Potential Startup Acquisitions
It seems like Mark Zuckerberg is on a mission to snatch up every promising AI startup out there. Whispers in the tech world suggest that Meta has been in talks to acquire a few prominent names. Besides Ilya Sutskever's Safe Superintelligence (SSI), Zuckerberg reportedly had discussions with Thinking Machines Lab, led by ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, and Perplexity, the AI-powered search engine aiming to challenge Google.
These talks, however, didn't lead to any actual offers. Apparently, disagreements over valuation and future strategies were the main roadblocks. But what these discussions do reveal is the extent to which Zuckerberg is pushing to revamp Meta's AI division. He wants to be a major player in the game, and he's not afraid to explore all available options.
A New AI Dream Team?
We're starting to get a clearer picture of who Zuckerberg is bringing on board to lead this AI revolution. Word on the street is that Daniel Gross, co-founder and CEO of SSI, and Nat Friedman, former CEO of GitHub, are set to co-lead Meta's AI assistant project. Both of them will report to Alexandr Wang, formerly the CEO of Scale AI. The interesting part? Meta reportedly shelled out over $14 billion to secure Wang's services quickly!
Wang seems to have wasted no time getting started. After bidding farewell to his team at Scale last Friday, he was already at Meta headquarters on Monday. He's been diving headfirst into meetings with Meta's top brass and actively recruiting talent to build this new AI dream team that Zuckerberg has entrusted him with. We might get an official announcement as early as next week.
The AI landscape is incredibly dynamic, and companies are constantly seeking the best talent and technology to stay ahead. With Zuckerberg's aggressive moves, Meta is clearly signaling its intention to be a major contender. It will be interesting to see how this new AI team and strategy unfold and what innovations they bring to the table. This high-stakes game of AI chess is definitely one to watch!
Source: The Verge