Meta is in advanced talks to hire prominent AI investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross to help lead its artificial intelligence efforts, according to a recent report by The Information.
As part of the negotiations, Meta is discussing a partial buyout of its venture capital fund, NFDG, which holds stakes in top AI startups. The fund, worth billions of dollars on paper, could cost Meta over $1 billion to buy out.
If the deal is successful, Gross, who co-founded Safe Superintelligence (SSI) with former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, would leave the startup to join Meta. At Meta, Gross is expected to focus primarily on AI products, while Friedman’s role is anticipated to be broader.
Both Friedman and Gross are AI investors and have been involved in leading companies. They work closely with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, who joined Meta in a $14.3 billion deal.
Friedman was the CEO of GitHub (acquired by Microsoft) and is now an investor and advisor, particularly through his venture fund NFDG. As per the report, he has also been consulting with Meta on its AI strategy since 2014.
In addition to the buyout, Meta is negotiating the purchase of a substantial portion of NFDG’s holdings, gaining minority stakes in the startups backed by the fund, such as SSI, but without gaining control or access to sensitive information about these companies.
Meta has been aggressively pursuing top AI talent.
In a recent podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that Meta is offering $100 million signing bonuses to attract talent. He also added that none of their top people have accepted those offers yet.
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