Zuckerberg couldn't buy Ilya Sutskever's AI start-up—but poached its CEO
What's the story
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, recently attempted to acquire Safe Superintelligence, an artificial intelligence (AI) start-up founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever.
However, when Sutskever declined the offer, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg turned his attention to recruiting Daniel Gross, the start-up's CEO and co-founder.
The move is part of Zuckerberg's larger strategy to bolster Meta's AI team and capabilities.
Recruitment drive
Meta's attempt to acquire Safe Superintelligence
Zuckerberg's multibillion-dollar AI hiring spree isn't stopping with Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang.
Meta recently attempted to acquire Safe Superintelligence, which was valued at $32 billion in a fundraising round in April.
Sutskever, who launched the start-up just a year ago after leaving OpenAI, reportedly turned down both acquisition and employment offers from Meta.
Strategic alliance
Gross and Friedman's roles at Meta
After the failed acquisition talks with Safe Superintelligence, Zuckerberg started courting Safe Superintelligence's CEO Gross and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman for his team.
Along with his duties at Safe Superintelligence, Gross also co-runs a venture capital firm called NFDG with Friedman.
Both men are now joining Meta as part of the deal and will work on products under Wang's direction.
In return, Meta will get a stake in NFDG, according to CNBC.
Talent acquisition
AI talent war heats up in Silicon Valley
Zuckerberg's aggressive hiring tactics have intensified the AI talent war. Tech giants like Meta, Google, and OpenAI are racing to build the most powerful large language models and push toward artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Last week, Meta agreed to invest $14.3 billion in Scale AI for a 49% stake in the start-up.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed on his podcast that Meta has tried to hire OpenAI employees with signing bonuses as high as $100 million.
AI expertise
Gross and Friedman's background
Zuckerberg's latest recruit, Gross, is a seasoned entrepreneur and AI investor. He founded search engine Cue, which was acquired by Apple in 2013.
At Apple, he contributed to machine learning efforts and the development of Siri.
Later, he became a partner at start-up accelerator Y Combinator before co-founding Safe Superintelligence with Sutskever.
Friedman's previous experience includes co-founding two start-ups before becoming GitHub's CEO after Microsoft's acquisition of the code-sharing platform in 2018.