- 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 provides CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s tech firm a 49% stake within the startup. Wang turned 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 yr of MIT and by no means seemed 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 instructed CNBC, however didn’t elaborate on specifics. In his notice, Wang mentioned 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 keeping with his LinkedIn.
For Wang, he attributes a few of his success all through the years to being a relative newcomer to the AI trade.
“I consider there’s an enormous premium to naivete,” Wang instructed Daniel Levine on a 2023 Youtube podcast. “Approaching industries with a very clean slate and with out a tremendous grain understanding of what makes issues laborious is definitely a part of what permits you to 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 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 carry together with him expertise working with Meta rivals, together with Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Meta is certainly one of Scale AI’s greatest 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 yr from buyers together with Amazon and Meta at a valuation of $13.8 billion.
“However as I frolicked actually contemplating it, I spotted this was a deeply distinctive second, not only for me, however for Scale as nicely,” Wang wrote.
This deal greater than doubles Scale AI’s valuation to $29 billion.
This story was initially featured on Fortune.com