Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is on an artificial intelligence talent acquisition spree, reportedly approaching several high-profile AI startups for a potential acquisition.<\/p>\n
According to multiple news reports, these startups included the following:<\/p>\n
Meta also reportedly tried to hire away<\/a> OpenAI\u2019s employees with signing bonuses of up to $100 million.<\/p>\n Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth told CNBC<\/a> that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is countering the offers.<\/p>\n \u201cThe market is setting a rate here for a level of talent which is really incredible and kind of unprecedented in my 20-year career as a technology executive,\u201d Bosworth told CNBC.<\/p>\n While most of the AI startups said no to Zuckerberg, he succeeded with Scale AI. Meta is investing $14.3 billion for a 49% stake and hiring away<\/a> its CEO, Alexandr Wang, who will lead superintelligence efforts.<\/p>\n Read more<\/strong>: OpenAI Winds Down Involvement With Scale AI<\/a><\/p>\n Meta also will partially acquire NFDG; Friedman and Gross will join Meta and work under Wang.<\/p>\n Zuckerberg is seeking to beef up its AI efforts after reportedly being frustrated<\/a> by the pace of advancements of its flagship open-source large language model, Llama.<\/p>\n The company already has one of the godfathers of AI, Yann LeCun, on staff as chief AI scientist. It also already has an AI research lab, Fundamental AI Research (FAIR).<\/p>\n It\u2019s not yet clear how Wang will collaborate with LeCun.<\/p>\n Wang is a 28-year-old MIT dropout who co-founded Scale AI, a company that provides high-quality annotated and curated data for AI models.<\/p>\n The recruitment push comes at a time when competition for skilled AI talent has reached a fever pitch, with companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Microsoft and Anthropic vying for the same pool of geniuses.<\/p>\n The renewed focus on AI talent comes as Meta looks to expand the capabilities of Llama and integrate advanced AI into its products. Meta\u2019s AI-driven features now power everything from content recommendations on Instagram to conversational assistants in WhatsApp.<\/p>\n The company is also exploring AI agents to enhance customer service and commerce across its platforms.<\/p>\n Read more<\/strong>: Meta Reorganizes GenAI Team to Accelerate Product Rollouts<\/a><\/p>\n