eta is employing a proactive recruitment strategy for its Superintelligence center, which is responsible for the development of artificial intelligence that surpasses human intelligence.
Meta attempted to acquire Safe Superintelligence (SSI), a top AI startup valued at $32 billion, according to CNBC earlier this year. In June 2024, Ilya Sutskever, a founding member of OpenAI, co-founded SSI, one month after he resigned from his position as chief scientist at OpenAI. The startup’s objective is to construct a superintelligence, or an AI with advanced capabilities, by prioritizing security.
CNBC was informed by sources that Sutskever declined Meta’s offer to purchase SSI and declined Meta’s offer to engage him. Meta subsequently initiated negotiations regarding a potential partnership with Daniel Gross, CEO of SSI, and Nat Friedman, former CEO of GitHub. Gross and Friedman jointly operate a venture capital firm known as NFDG, which is derived from the combination of their initials.
Currently, CNBC has been informed by numerous sources that Meta is acquiring a stake in NFDG in exchange for Gross and Friedman’s participation in Meta’s Superintelligence facility. The extent of Meta’s investment in NFDG remains uncertain.
According to reports, Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI, will supervise Gross and Friedman’s efforts to develop AI products at Meta. Last week, Wang disclosed that he would be departing Scale AI to join Meta as part of a $14.3 billion investment of Meta in the startup.
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According to reports, the compensation package for the new employees will be very favorable. Meta is now offering researchers on its Superintelligence team a salary of up to nine figures, according to a Bloomberg report from last week. This week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed that Meta attempted to recruit OpenAI researchers by offering $100 million signing bonuses and even higher compensation packages as leverage.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has been personally overseeing the recruitment process for the Superintelligence team, as reported by Bloomberg. He has extended an invitation to prominent AI researchers and engineers from other organizations to visit his residences in Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe in order to discuss potential opportunities to become a part of Meta. Zuckerberg’s objective is for Meta to become the first company to accomplish superintelligence, which it will subsequently leverage to power its products, including its AI chatbot and AI smart glasses.
Meta’s initiative to recruit new talent, including Wang, Gross, and Friedman, is implemented amid its efforts to retain its current AI workforce. Deedy Das, a venture capitalist at Menlo Ventures, disclosed on X last week that Meta had lost three AI researchers to OpenAI and Anthropic, despite proposing compensation of $2 million or more.
Das wrote, “The AI talent wars are utterly absurd.”
At the time of this writing, Meta stock had experienced a 15% increase year-to-date.
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