Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang joins Meta for AI research: Who is he and why is Zuckerberg investing on his $29 billion startup

Time of India

13-06-2025

Facebook owner
Meta has invested in
Scale AI
in a deal that values the labelling startup of worth more than $29 billion. The CEO and co-founder of Scale AI is a 28-year-old
Alexandr Wang
who has emerged as one of the most influential figures in the artificial intelligence landscape. Scale AI initially was a data-labeling company and quickly became an underlying face of the AI revolution, quietly serving as an enabler of everything from self-driving cars to large language models (LLMs). Wang is now moving into a leadership role of high stakes at Meta, taking the helm at a newly created research lab aimed at creating
artificial superintelligence
(ASI).
Why is Meta investing millions on 28-year-old Alexandr Wang startup Scale AI
Meta is spending $15 billion to buy a 49% stake in Scale AI at a valuation of more than $29 billion, as reported by Reuters. This strategic acquisition marks Meta's aggressive push to surpass competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft. Wang will join Meta's new 50-person research lab to spearhead the creation of ASI; AI systems with intelligence greater than humans. The agreement also comprises seven to nine-figure pay packages to entice top AI talent away from top institutions and competitors.
Meta's foray into superintelligence is at an important time. Though Meta made ambitious moves such as embedding AI in products like Ray-Ban smart glasses and open-sourcing its Llama models, it has trailed behind rivals in important AI developments. The company has been grappling with internal tension, employee turnover, and lackluster product releases. Its AI work was previously led by chief scientist Yann LeCun, who developed convolutional neural networks (CNNs). LeCun's distrust of LLMs and AGI, however, has opened up philosophical fault lines within Meta's AI leadership.
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Meet Alexandr Wang, Scale AI CEO and co-founder background
Alexandr Wang, CEO and co-founder of Scale AI was born and raised in New Mexico by Chinese immigrant parents who were physicists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Wang's intellectual heritage runs deep. He held a short-term stint at Quora prior to dropping out of MIT after his first year. He then joined Y Combinator spearheaded at the time by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and founded Scale AI with co-founder Lucy Guo. Although Guo later exited the company, Wang continued to build Scale into a unicorn, securing investments from Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and reaching a $7 billion valuation by 2019. At just 24, he was named the youngest self-made billionaire.
Alexandr Wang Scale AI's business model and rapid growth
Scale AI founded in 2016 focused on organising and labeling vast datasets initially for autonomous vehicles. It emerged as the preeminent data infrastructure company for AI creators, hosting clients such as Waymo, Toyota, Honda, OpenAI, and Microsoft. It also serves the US government in interpreting satellite imagery. Scale had $870 million in revenue in 2024 and hopes to double that in 2025 and, possibly, hit a $25 billion valuation. However, increased competition from companies such as Surge AI, Labelbox, and Snorkel AI brings new challenges.
Scale AI: Ethical issues and outsourcing techniques
Even though Scale AI has been successful, it has also come under fire for outsourcing data labeling to the low-cost labor markets of Kenya, Venezuela, India, and the Philippines. Using its own platform, Remotasks, Scale trains the workers to do data annotation, typically in reportedly suboptimal working conditions, for less than $1 per hour. This has led to broader discussions concerning the ethics of human-in-the-loop AI systems.
Alexandr Wang has also developed close relationships with the leading figures in the technology world such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and applied his increasing influence to open up in Washington DC. Alexandr Wang, who is not from a research background, has created a mighty AI business with an incisive business mind and revived Meta's AI vision better than the usual research-focused leadership.
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