A Meta confirmed an investment of $ 14.3 billion (about $ 76 billion) in Scales tostartup founded by Alexandr Wang. The business, which represents a slice of 49% of the company, raises Scale’s assessment to more than $ 29 billion, becoming the second largest investment ever made by Mark Zuckerbergbehind only the acquisition of WhatsApp for $ 19 billion in 2014.
Along with the financial agreement, the operation also marks Wang’s arrival at the goal. The 28 -year -old executive will be responsible for leading a new laboratory dedicated to the so -called “” – a term used to describe the development of General Artificial Intelligence Systems (AGE), capable of performing intellectual tasks with superior to human performance.
According to the goal statement, investment is part of the strategy of accelerating the development of technologies, prioritizing data production for artificial intelligence models.
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Already Scale AI will continue to operate independently, but Wang leaves the position of CEO and joins the board of directors of the company. With this, Scale’s strategy director Jason Dro, assumes as an interim CEO.
Giant of the Data
Founded in 2016, Scale Ai became a key piece in providing data labeling services. With the use of human annotators, the startup organizes and classifies large volumes of information, facilitating the absorption of data by AI systems.
A considerable portion of the work is done outside the United States, in countries with cheaper labor. Still, the operational complexity and strategic importance of Scale made the company attract attention of big names in the industry, including Google, OpenAi and Microsoft.
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In a social networking publication, Wang celebrated the agreement as a “significant milestone and a powerful validation of his team’s effort”. See the full English text below:
Talent Incorporation
For industry analysts, what is at stake goes beyond Scale’s assets. Wang hiring is seen as one of the largest “acquihires” ever made – the term is used to describe “acquisitions” whose main objective is to incorporate talents, not just products or technologies.
This is because the goal is basically disbursing billions of dollars to ensure the presence of the young executive and his nearest team. Prominence in a list of professionals under 30 years old made by the magazine ForbesAlexandr Wang was born in the US, son of a couple of Chinese immigrants.
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His parents are physical and worked with weapons development for the US Army. After winning several teenage math competitions, Wang joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
His university career was short because, after less than a year of study, the young man left college to found his company, along with Lucy Guo, also the daughter of Chinese immigrants.
But the movement of the target does not distance other similar operations made by giants in the sector. In 2023, Microsoft invested $ 650 million to bring Mustafa Suleyman (inflection AI). Meanwhile, Google had a cost of $ 2.7 billion to attract Noam Shazeer from Character.ai to the company last year.
