Less than a week later, Mark Zuckerberg turned his attention to another high-profile AI startup: Safe Superintelligence, as part of the $14.3 billion deal.
Sources say Meta brought Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman. This is two important figures at Safe Superintelligence and is the co-founder of venture company NFDG.
Meta tried to buy safe tension
The move follows Meta’s failed attempt earlier this year to fully acquire the startup with the reported $32 billion. Ilya Sutskever, CEO who co-founded Safe Superintelligence after leaving Openai, rejected the offer, as well as Meta’s direct employment efforts.
“Early this year, Meta said he was trying to win a safe emergency that was reportedly valued at $32 billion in the April funding round. SatzCaber, who just launched a startup a year ago, said it was an attempt to hire Meta after refusing to make it.
Once these talks were finished, Zuckerberg shifted his focus to Gross. Negotiations began and soon both Gross and Friedman agreed to join the meta. The duo is reportedly working under King’s leadership, and Meta is expected to acquire a stake in venture company NFDG.
Information first reported on recruitment.
A Meta spokesperson said the company will “share more about our close efforts about the great people who will be joining this team in the coming weeks.”
Gross brings years of experience as an AI investor and entrepreneur. He previously founded Search Startup Cue, which Apple acquired in 2013, and later helped lead machine learning at Apple, including Siri’s work. He also spent time as a partner in the Y Combinator.
Best known for leading GitHub after the acquisition of Microsoft, Friedman co-founded several startups and built a reputation as a top operator and investor. Through the NFDG, he and Gross have supported companies such as Coinbase, Figma, CoreWeave, Prplexity and Charition.ai, according to Pitchbook. With Meta involved, it is still unclear what will happen with these investments.
Employers are part of a broader push to stay competitive in Zuckerberg’s AI military. Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in scale AI landed a 49% stake in the company last week, bringing multiple top engineers along with Wang.
Openai CEO Sam Altman said he tried to hide the brothers’ podcast and seduce Meta by signing a $100 million bonus. “None of our best people have decided to take it up,” Altman said. “Their current AI efforts aren’t working as well as they wanted. I’m aggressive and I respect the continued efforts of new things.”
Meta did not respond to requests for comment regarding Altman’s comments.
The competition has become fierce to secure AI talent. Last year, Microsoft spent $650 million to acquire team members from Fromifict AI, including Deepmind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman. Google has returned the founder of Character.Ai to fold with a multi-billion dollar deal. Openai hired Jony Ive and lost $6.5 billion after acquiring a hardware startup.
Zuckerberg’s strategy is clear. If he can’t buy a company, he brings in people to build it. And with Gross and Friedman on board, Meta’s bets on AI got much deeper.
Meanwhile, SSI has established shops in both Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv and recently signed a lease in Midtown Tel Aviv. There is none yet as to who will run the local business, but the company has attracted Dr. Yair Carmon, a machine learning researcher at Tel Aviv University. Carmon received his PhD from Stanford University and has a solid track record in academic circles.
Supporters for the first round of fundraising include heavyweights such as Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, DST Global and Yuri Milner’s investment outfits.
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