alt Hacker NewsMark Zuckerberg creating new Applied AI engineering company, reorganises teams
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People seriously underestimate how many founders were just right place at the right time/had their startups pumped full of VC cash. Meet some of these unicorn founders in person behind closed doors and it will throw you into an existential crisis
The HN post[1] eight months ago about the Scale acquisition is full of comments questioning Zuck's choice to have Wang lead their AI division. I guess HN was right this time.
The striking thing I heard from Meta staff is that Alexandr Wang would walk around campus with very obvious bodyguards surrounding him. Like sure maybe security is needed, but the decision to be surrounded with bouncerish guys says something about him.
What are the odds that Zuckerberg would still be CEO if he didn't have a majority stake in the company? From the outside it seems like he has made one terrible financial decision after the next. Can anyone be surprised that things aren't going smoothly given his track record?
The decision to buy scale and put Wang in charge was a bad one, but I think people are too focused on the $14B (which doesn't matter to Meta in the slightest) instead of the actual logic behind the purchase. Meta didn't need more labeled data, and a data labeling expert is not the person to lead your AI initiatives. I think spending $14B to try and get ahead in the AI race is a great idea, and Meta should be spending more money (there is some level of existential risk if they don't play in this market), but spending it on companies like Scale makes no sense.
A new applied AI? A new team with access to fbook?
Challenge: take all the real estate / house for rent / sale scammers and make them only be seen by each other and not waste so many other people's time.
I'm sure an agent could of taken the fb message and then engaged in the sms phone texts and deciphered the affiliate scam I dealt with today faster than I did.
Save users time, money and make fbook better. I think this is possible.
I've participated in some corporate shit-shows in my day, but man I don't think I've ever seen one burn cash this fast.
Another thought: they say the software you ship reflects your org chart ("you ship your org chart"). Given how far Meta has slipped in the last year in the AI race, their org-wide dysfunction is starting to seriously harm them, from Financials to execution to talent. They need to get their act together, starting from the top.
I'm not a fan of Meta, but I'm a big fan of Llama. It was the first notable open weights model, and paved the way for all the others. Just for that I want to say: I'm rooting for you guys. Hope an amazing Llama 5 release comes after all this pain and churn.
I guess this comment got merged into a different thread (the times of india one). This comment was originally posted to this article's thread https://www.idnfinancials.com/news/61918/zuckerberg-has-fini...
This looks like a slop article. It seems to be referring (without a link) to https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/mar... which itself appears to be referring to this (without a link) https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-to-create-new-applied-ai-en... Neither of these articles include the word "finished" in them.
Update: and fwiw here is Andy Stone saying it's false https://x.com/andymstone/status/2031129981267620314
Unfortunate isn't the right word, but it's unfortunate they are going to spend all this money and have nothing to show for it. Maybe wasteful is the right word.
shoutout Zuck for making the call. seems right given they haven't had any good model releases since bringing him on
can't even really blame Alex for taking the deal, why would Zuckerberg not do more due diligence? Wang has created (a relatively) successful subcontracting operation but that doesn't mean anything about research or new models
I have a feeling we will start seeing a lot of this...
Who could have predicted that a guy who has no experience developing superintelligence will fail at developing superintelligence.
Fail fast
I wish I could fuck up this much this often and still get richer every day.
zuck panicked.
the metaverse didn't pan out.
other companies were making inroads on A.I and zuck felt flat-footed.
the crazy shit is in an era where most content on social media is A.I generated - zuck should've pivoted to banning A.I content but eh what do I know
It doesn't matter how many "wunderkinds" Zuckerberg pays off to work at Meta. Meta is not an AI company so they will never produce anything of relevance in that domain.
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Can anyone find any more authoritative sources for this story than I can?
The original source submitted was https://www.idnfinancials.com/news/61918/zuckerberg-has-fini..., with the headline Zuckerberg has “finished” with Alexandr Wang, worth US$14 billion.
The second paragraph says “According to a report by Times of India...”. I found that article - https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/mar... – and changed the URL and title on this submission (though I find it hard to read the article without freezing/crashing Chrome on my quite-new Apple laptop).
I can't find a source for the claim that Zuckerberg has “finished” with Alexandr Wang in either article. Nobody is quoted using the word “finished” or making any other assertions about Wang's status at Meta. It all just seems to be IDN Financials handwavingly connecting dots to create a sensationalist story and headline.
Also, the Times of India article says “According to The Wall Street Journal...”, which must mean this article: Meta to Create New Applied AI Engineering Organization – https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-to-create-new-applied-ai-en....
That article also makes no assertions about Wang's status at Meta.
As that article is the original source for this whole story, it should be the URL and title for this submission. But I can't get an archive link for it.
For now I'm downweighting this submission and I want the last 30 minutes of my life back!