Meta's AI Strategy - Lightcone
Mark Zuckerberg has pulled out all the stops in pursuit of his AI ambition. Over the past few months, Zuckerberg has poached leading AI researchers from top rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic, offering jaw-dropping pay packages that range from millions to over a billion dollars. Meta bought 49% of the data labeling company Scale AI and appointed its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to lead Meta’s new Superintelligence initiative. Meta is estimated to spend a record $66-72 billion on AI Capex in 2025, including building multi-gigawatt datacenters that rival the size of Manhattan.
Why is Mark Zuckerberg, who has a dictator-like control over his company, going all in on AI? There are half a dozen companies with models better than Meta’s best, and its recent attempt to catch up failed miserably. What’s the reasoning behind pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into building new models, at a time when frontier models are more commoditized than ever?
Many people think Mark Zuckerberg is deluded. That AI is a bubble that’s about to pop, and that Meta will go down with it. That paying AI researchers fresh out of college hundreds of millions to billions of dollars is a waste of money. That just like the companies’ bet on the metaverse; betting big on AI will not pay off.
