Background on Key Players and Relevance
Meta, the American social media empire led by Mark Zuckerberg, is investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI) to stay competitive. Recently, Meta spent over $14 billion to acquire a 49% stake in Scale AI, a company specializing in data conditioning for developing AI models.
Scale AI’s expertise is crucial as Meta aims to bolster its AI team and catch up in the generative AI race, a strategy that has raised skepticism among observers.
Meta’s Aggressive Hiring Efforts
According to various U.S. media outlets, Meta had previously contacted Ilya Sutskever, co-founder of OpenAI, as well as Perplexity AI (a self-proclaimed rival to Google) and Runway (a leading AI company in video technology).
OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, confirmed that Meta offered individual signing bonuses exceeding $10 million and annual salaries around the same amount to many OpenAI employees. In a Meta memo, confirmed by Meta, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that at least seven employees decided to leave, along with Scale AI’s CEO Alexandr Wang and several Anthropic and Google employees.
OpenAI research head Mark Chen expressed his concern in an internal letter shared with Wired, stating, “It feels like someone has broken into our house and stolen something.” Chen mentioned that the company is working tirelessly to retain employees amidst these departures.
Concerns and Skepticism
Zuckerberg’s initiative stems from his worry that Meta is falling behind in generative AI despite investing heavily. His latest AI model, Llama 4, launched in early April, underperformed compared to other top models from U.S., Chinese, and French companies.
Bloggers like Zvi Mowshowitz are skeptical of Meta’s approach, stating that while it may attract talent, the high salaries required to lure employees could prove problematic. Mowshowitz doesn’t expect this strategy to succeed.
On Wall Street, despite Meta’s stock nearing its historical peak and a market capitalization close to $2 trillion, some investors are starting to question the company’s financial management and liquidity.
Analyst Ted Mortonson from Baird notes that Meta’s strength lies in AI advertising, but there are concerns about the unchecked spending. Analyst Angelo Zino from CFRA remains optimistic about Meta’s long-term prospects, believing that the investments will create more AI monetization opportunities through advertising, connected devices, or Llama.
Superintelligence and Timeline
Zino predicts that superintelligent AI, which surpasses human comprehension and thought capabilities, is still at least three to five years away. Nonetheless, he believes Meta must recruit and invest heavily now to be prepared for this future phase.
