Before &#34;buying&#34; Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang for over $14 billion, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had also set his sights on the new company of former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.According to a previous article by Wall Street Insight, in early June, Meta finalized a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, which, if calculated as an acquisition, would become Meta's second-largest deal in history, following the $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp in 2014.On June 19, CNBC reported that Zuckerberg's initial plan was much more aggressive than simply poaching talent. Earlier this year, Meta attempted to directly acquire Safe Superintelligence, founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.This startup, which was only established a year ago, was valued at $32 billion in its funding round in April. However, Sutskever was clearly unmoved, rejecting not only Meta's acquisition proposal but also personal recruitment.The report noted that after the direct acquisition path was blocked, Zuckerberg quickly adjusted his strategy, targeting Safe Superintelligence CEO Daniel Gross and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.<h2>A &#34;Package Deal&#34; for a Roundabout Rescue</h2>Insiders revealed that Gross and Friedman would both join Meta and work under Alexandr Wang in product development. The tech media outlet The Information was the first to report on Meta's plans to recruit Gross and Friedman.A Meta spokesperson stated that the company &#34;will share more information in the coming weeks about our work in superintelligence and the talented individuals joining this team.&#34;<blockquote>Gross's resume is considered an &#34;all-star&#34; in the Silicon Valley AI circle: the search engine he founded, Cue, was acquired by Apple in 2013, after which he served as an executive at Apple and participated in machine learning and Siri development, later becoming a partner at Y Combinator, and ultimately co-founding Safe Superintelligence with Sutskever.Friedman is also highly regarded, having served as CEO after Microsoft's acquisition of GitHub in 2018, and previously co-founding two startups.</blockquote>Insiders revealed that in addition to his role at Safe Superintelligence, Gross also co-manages a venture capital firm called NFDG with Friedman. This deal will allow Meta to achieve two goals with one move—gaining two top talents in the AI field and acquiring shares in NFDGAnalysis indicates that this &#34;curve-saving&#34; strategy allows Zuckerberg to access relevant core talent and technological resources even when he cannot directly acquire the target company.NFDG's investment portfolio includes star companies such as Coinbase, Figma, CoreWeave, Perplexity, and Character.ai. Insiders have stated that the disposal of these portfolios in the Meta acquisition deal remains unclear, which may bring uncertainties to the future development of the related companies.<h2>Talent Acquisition Trend in Silicon Valley's AI Circle</h2>This exorbitant poaching is not unique to Meta. OpenAI is also not to be outdone, spending approximately $6.5 billion to recruit iPhone designer Jony Ive and acquire his startup device company io.Last year, the founders of AI startup Character.AI returned to Google in a multi-billion dollar deal, while DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman was poached by Microsoft for $650 million from Inflection AI.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed in the latest podcast that Meta offered up to $100 million in signing bonuses to poach OpenAI employees, with annual salary packages far exceeding this figure.Altman stated, &#34;Our best talent has not been swayed by these conditions,&#34; but this statement itself exposes the intensity of the competition. Altman candidly remarked in the podcast:<blockquote>&#34;I heard that Meta sees us as their biggest competitor, and their current AI project progress is not as expected. I understand their aggressive attitude and their continuous attempts at new strategies.&#34;</blockquote>

OpenAI

According to reports, after the direct acquisition path of Ilya's company was blocked, Zuckerberg turned to recruit the company's CEO Daniel Gross and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. This deal will allow Meta to not only acquire two top talents in the AI field but also gain shares in a venture capital company called NFDG, jointly operated by Gross and Friedman

- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg aimed to acquire Safe Superintelligence, founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, before investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI.  
- After Sutskever rejected the acquisition offer, Zuckerberg shifted focus to hiring Safe Superintelligence's CEO Daniel Gross and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, who will work under Alexandr Wang at Meta.  
- This strategy allows Meta to secure top AI talent and resources, reflecting the competitive landscape in Silicon Valley's AI sector, where high-profile talent acquisitions are becoming common.

Wallstreetcn

Meta Platforms

Not only Scale AI, but Meta also considered acquiring the company of former OpenAI Chief Scientist Ilya