- Alexandr Wang, as soon as the youngest self-made billionaire on the planet, has agreed to affix Meta to work on AI “superintelligence,” leaving the startup that made him wealthy after dropping out of MIT.
Alexandr Wang’s Scale AI simply inked a $14.3 billion funding cope with Meta, which transitions the 28-year-old out of his CEO place on the startup he co-founded with fellow billionaire and estranged enterprise accomplice Lucy Guo.
Wang introduced Thursday on X that he’s leaving Scale AI to affix Meta as a part of an settlement that provides CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s tech firm a 49% stake within the startup. Wang grew to become the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at age 24, simply 5 years after dropping out of school and creating the San Francisco-based firm. Now, his estimated internet value is $3.6 billion.
“I started this company right out of freshman year of MIT and never looked back,” Wang wrote in his memo to Scale AI workers on Thursday. “I wouldn’t change a minute of it.”
Wang will proceed to function a director on the corporate’s board whereas engaged on “superintelligence efforts” for Meta, a Scale AI spokesperson advised CNBC, however didn’t elaborate on specifics. In his be aware, Wang mentioned he would poach a couple of “Scalien” workers to take with him to Meta, however didn’t identify them.
Within the interim, Scale’s board and Wang determined to nominate chief technique officer Jason Droege as a brief CEO. Previous to becoming a member of Scale AI in August 2024, Droege was a enterprise accomplice at Benchmark and an Uber vice chairman, in response to his LinkedIn.
For Wang, he attributes a few of his success all through the years to being a relative newcomer to the AI business.
“I believe there’s a huge premium to naivete,” Wang advised Daniel Levine on a 2023 Youtube podcast. “Approaching industries with a totally blank slate and without a fine grain understanding of what makes things hard is actually part of what allows you to accomplish things.”
Wang additionally inspired startup founders to be extra “open-minded,” one thing he and his colleagues at Scale AI championed from the the corporate’s early days.
Zuckerberg has reportedly made AI a high precedence for 2025. The funding in Wang’s experience could also be a part of the reported meeting of a 50-person superintelligence AI workforce at Meta meant to achieve floor on rivals like Google and OpenAI.
Meta’s current Llama 4 AI fashions obtained a lukewarm response from builders, CNBC reported in Might.
Wang will deliver together with him expertise working with Meta rivals, together with Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Meta is considered one of Scale AI’s greatest purchasers.
In his memo, Wang wrote he was hesitant to conform to the supply to depart Scale AI at first, calling the choice “unimaginable” after elevating $1 billion final yr from buyers together with Amazon and Meta at a valuation of $13.8 billion.
“But as I spent time truly considering it, I realized this was a deeply unique moment, not just for me, but for Scale as well,” Wang wrote.
This deal greater than doubles Scale AI’s valuation to $29 billion.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
