🧠 Meta Pursues Leading AI Startups and Recruits Top Talent
According to a report from The Verge, Meta has held acquisition talks with three prominent AI startups:
Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI)
Thinking Machines
Perplexity AI
Although no deals were finalized due to valuation disagreements, the move highlights Meta’s growing ambition to lead in the race toward superintelligent AI—models that may eventually surpass human reasoning.
🧑💻 Hiring the Founders Instead of Buying the Startups
Instead of pursuing full acquisitions, Meta is directly recruiting the founders of these startups:
It reportedly offered leadership roles in Meta’s AI assistant division to Daniel Gross (co-founder of SSI) and Nat Friedman (former CEO of GitHub).
Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI, has already joined Meta through a $14.3 billion investment in exchange for a 49% stake in Scale AI.
Reports suggest Meta is offering compensation packages exceeding $100 million to attract elite AI researchers, signaling an aggressive talent war with competitors like OpenAI and Google.
🧾 Strategic Investment in Scale AI
In lieu of an acquisition, Meta invested heavily in Scale AI to secure access to training data and engineering talent, while avoiding the regulatory complexities of a full merger. This investment is seen as a key strategic alternative to outright buyouts.
🧪 Behemoth Delayed, Superintelligence Still the Goal
Meta’s major upcoming language model, internally known as “Behemoth”, was initially expected in April 2025, but has been postponed to late 2025. The delay hints at ongoing challenges in scaling up the company’s AI stack.
Nonetheless, Meta continues to emphasize “reasoning models” as the future, aiming to develop AI with superior logic and inference capabilities—even while issues around alignment and accuracy persist.
👓 Hardware + AI: Expanding Through Smart Glasses
Meta is also moving beyond software by launching Oakley-branded smart glasses in partnership with EssilorLuxottica, integrating AI assistants into wearables. This represents Meta’s vision of embedding AI into everyday life.