Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and former chief scientist of OpenAI, has stepped up to lead Safe Superintelligence (SSI), the AI startup he founded last year, following the departure of CEO Daniel Gross who was poached by Meta Platforms to head its AI products division.
Key Developments
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Daniel Gross left SSI to join Meta amid an intensifying AI talent war, where major tech companies compete fiercely with lucrative pay and strategic acquisitions.
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Meta has also tried to recruit Sutskever and acquire SSI, which was valued recently at $32 billion, but Sutskever emphasized the startup’s focus on its mission, despite the interest.
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SSI raised $1 billion last year aiming to build advanced AI systems that safely surpass human intelligence.
Background on Sutskever and Meta’s AI Push
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Sutskever previously played a pivotal role at OpenAI but departed following internal leadership turmoil involving Sam Altman in late 2023.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently created Meta Superintelligence Labs, consolidating the company’s AI efforts after challenges with its Llama 4 model and losing key talent.
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This new unit will be led by Alexandr Wang (ex-Scale AI CEO) and Nat Friedman (ex-GitHub chief), with Meta investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI to bolster its AI capabilities.
Industry Connections and Meta’s Strategy
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Gross and Friedman co-founded venture capital firm NFDG, which backs startups including SSI, Perplexity, and Figma.
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Meta reportedly offered to buy a minority stake in NFDG’s funds, signaling a strategic push to influence key players in the AI startup ecosystem.
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Gross’s background includes a 2013 startup acquisition by Apple and leadership roles in machine learning and AI at the tech giant.