- Alexandr Wang, as soon as the youngest self-made billionaire on the earth, 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 companion Lucy Guo.
Wang introduced Thursday on X that he’s leaving Scale AI to affix Meta as a part of an settlement that offers 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 price is $3.6 billion.
“I began this firm proper out of freshman 12 months of MIT and by no means appeared again,” Wang wrote in his memo to Scale AI staff 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 informed CNBC, however didn’t elaborate on specifics. In his notice, Wang stated he would poach a couple of “Scalien” staff 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 companion at Benchmark and an Uber vice chairman, in line with 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 imagine there’s an enormous premium to naivete,” Wang informed Daniel Levine on a 2023 Youtube podcast. “Approaching industries with a completely clean slate and and not using a effective grain understanding of what makes issues arduous is definitely a part of what means that you can accomplish issues.”
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 prime precedence for 2025. The funding in Wang’s experience could also be a part of the reported meeting of a 50-person superintelligence AI crew at Meta meant to realize floor on rivals like Google and OpenAI.
Meta’s latest Llama 4 AI fashions acquired a lukewarm response from builders, CNBC reported in Could.
Wang will deliver together with him expertise working with Meta rivals, together with Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Meta is one in all Scale AI’s largest purchasers.
In his memo, Wang wrote he was hesitant to conform to the supply to go away Scale AI at first, calling the choice “unimaginable” after elevating $1 billion final 12 months from traders together with Amazon and Meta at a valuation of $13.8 billion.
“However as I hung out actually contemplating it, I noticed this was a deeply distinctive second, not only for me, however for Scale as effectively,” Wang wrote.
This deal greater than doubles Scale AI’s valuation to $29 billion.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com
