THE ECONOMIST: Mark Zuckerberg is spending megabucks on an AI hiring spree for Meta to unseat ChatGPT

When Mark Zuckerberg decided to launch his quest for the metaverse in 2021, he threw fistfuls of cash at the effort.

Meta’s boss is now repeating the act, this time with generative artificial intelligence.

Hot on the heels of what may be the world’s most expensive acquihire — a $US14.3 billion ($22b) deal to buy 49 per cent of Scale AI, a data-labelling firm whose main asset is Alexandr Wang, its 28-year-old founder — people close to the matter say Mr Zuckerberg is planning to offer more than $US1b combined for two of Silicon Valley’s hottest AI brain boxes, who would work under Mr Wang. It marks the start of a reset of Meta’s generative-AI ambitions.

Meta has made no comment, but if the deal goes through Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, entrepreneurs and partners in a venture-capital (VC) firm called NFDG, will work in Meta’s “superintelligence” unit under Mr Wang, one of America’s youngest self-made billionaires.

The word “superintelligence” is somewhat misleading. Rather than ground-breaking AI research, the team is expected to focus on developing new AI products for Meta, some of whose recent efforts, including its latest Llama model and the Meta AI chatbot, have disappointed.

Someone who knows all three men calls the trio “the avengers”. He reckons they will have huge additional sums at their disposal to hire top AI researchers in order to unseat OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, as the dominant generative-AI firm.

“They’re going to go big,” he says.

Indeed, there appear to be few limits on what Meta is prepared to spend. On June 17 Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, said on a podcast that Meta was offering signing bonuses of $US100m to poach his staff.

Another person close to the situation says Mr Zuckerberg sought to hire Ilya Sutskever, the brains behind ChatGPT and co-founder of Safe Superintelligence (SSI), another hot AI startup, to work at Meta, though he was unsuccessful.

“He is throwing insane amounts of money at people,” the person said.

The gambit shows Mr Zuckerberg’s continued willingness to make mighty, long-term bets to reinvent his firm, even if his foray into the metaverse has been a costly flop.

“This is very Zuckerbergian to do these big, loud stunts just to prove how committed he is,” says Eric Seufert, an independent tech analyst.

And while the sums are big, they may not be as reckless as some pundits argued when reports surfaced that Meta was buying its stake in Scale AI, considering how much of Meta’s $US1.7t market value is riding on its success in AI.

The acquisitions also involve people with close personal ties and shared ideals.

Mr Friedman, former boss of GitHub, a software-development platform owned by Microsoft, is friends with Mr Zuckerberg.

He is part of Meta’s Advisory Group, which provides guidance to the company.

And, like Mr Zuckerberg, he is a lover of ancient Rome. He and Mr Gross helped launch a contest called the Vesuvius Challenge to decode scrolls buried in Herculaneum after Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD.

Mr Friedman and Mr Gross are savvy AI investors. Some call their VC firm the AI equivalent of Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley juggernaut born out of the dotcom boom. Mr Friedman invested in Scale AI and is close to Mr Wang.

Mr Gross is a co-founder of Mr Sutskever’s SSI, which was recently valued at $US32b less than a year after its birth. It is not clear what will happen to NFDG.

People who know the two say that joining Meta appeals not only for the generous terms, but also the excitement of working for an AI heavyweight and the money and computing power it will put at their disposal.

“This is the tech battle of our time,” says one person close to the pair. Mr Zuckerberg intends to win.