Meta is on a multibillion-dollar spree of hiring AI giants and purchasing their companies.
This started with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg poaching Scale AI founder, Alexandr Wang as part of a US$14.3 billion investment in the artificial intelligence startup.
Now, Zuckerberg has his sights on the CEO of Ilya Sutskever’s startup, Safe Superintelligence, Daniel Gross and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, according to sources close to the matter.
Meta previously tried to acquire Safe Superintelligence, which was reportedly valued at $32 billion in a fundraising round in April. Sutskever had just launched the startup a year ago and rebuffed Meta’s efforts to both acquire the company and poach him.
Both Gross and Friedman however will begin working for Meta on products under Wang. Meta will also take a stake in their venture capital firm, NFDG.
Sam Altman has also stated that Zuckerberg has tried to lure OpenAI employees with signing bonuses as high as $100 million, and even higher annual compensation packages.
However, Altman said none of his staff took the offer.
“I’ve heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor,” Altman said on the Uncapped podcast hosted by his brother.
“Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things.”
OpenAI has also gone to similar lengths, including paying around $6.5 million to hire iPhone designer Jony Ive and acquiring his nascent devices startup io.
