Meta Creates Superintelligence Team With Talent Stolen from OpenAI

Mark Zuckerberg is serious this time. He has created a new group of Superintelligences that could give OpenAI a run for its money.

Zuckerberg announced the creation of “ Meta Superintelligence Labs ,” a group that will lead all of the company’s AI work. At its head will be Alexandr Wang , former CEO of Scale AI, who just joined Meta in a multibillion-dollar deal. At his side will be Nat Friedman , former CEO of GitHub. Two heavyweights now working toward the same goal: to make the world forget ChatGPT.

But it doesn't end there. Meta has been shopping for brains like there's no tomorrow: 11 new strategic hires, all stolen from the most fearsome competitors. Former employees of Anthropic , Google DeepMind and OpenAI now work for Zuck. How much does it cost to buy the best AI talent on the planet? As Sam Altman reported, Meta spared no expense and offered mind-blowing bonuses . OpenAI, in fact, is said to be very angry and worried, and has asked its employees to refuse Meta's offers .

Why the sudden rush? Simple: Meta is behind the times. For the past two years, while ChatGPT was revolutionizing the world and Google was running for cover with Gemini , Zuckerberg was obsessed with virtual metaverses that no one wanted. Now he understands which way the wind is blowing.

Meta’s ambitions have gone far beyond hiring top talent from rivals. It has tried to directly buy the most promising AI startups of the moment, such as Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab , Perplexity , and Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence . But none of the deals have advanced to the formal offer stage. They’ve all said no to Zuckerberg’s money.

In the internal memo to employees, Meta explained the goal of the Superintelligence team : to create next-generation AI models that can compete with the best in the world within the next year. Meta wants to build its own version of ChatGPT. It is no longer content to chase its rivals, it wants to play in the A-series of artificial intelligence.

The truth is, we are in the midst of a race, where those who do not have their own artificial intelligence are at risk of disappearing. Google has Gemini. Microsoft has ChatGPT from OpenAI . Amazon has Claude (via Anthropic). Apple… well, Apple still has problems with Siri , and is reportedly considering powering its assistant with ChatGPT or Claude .

Meta was the only big absentee. Until today. Now Zuckerberg has decided to gamble everything: money, brains stolen from competitors, and the reputation of the entire company. Will he be able to close the gap with the AI ​​leaders? He has plenty of resources, and now he also has the right talent. But he is starting years late in a race where every month counts as a normal year.