Mark Zuckerberg is doubling down on his AI ambitions, and he’s not being subtle about it. Just days after making headlines for Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI and recruiting its founder Alexandr Wang, Zuckerberg has now set his sights on yet more top-tier AI talent. The latest recruits? Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman, co-founders of the venture firm NFDG and key figures in the rising AI startup Safe Superintelligence (SSI), were founded by former OpenAI scientist Ilya Sutskever.
Zuckerberg’s initial goal, sources say, was to acquire Safe Superintelligence, which had been valued at $32 billion during an April funding round. But those efforts were swiftly rebuffed by Sutskever, who not only turned down Meta’s acquisition offer but also refused a personal job offer. This rejection, however, didn’t put an end to Meta’s pursuit.
According to insiders, Zuckerberg pivoted quickly, opening negotiations with Daniel Gross shortly after talks with SSI stalled. Aside from his work with Sutskever at SSI, Gross also runs NFDG alongside Nat Friedman, the former CEO of GitHub. Now, both men are set to join Meta, where they’ll work under Alexandr Wang’s leadership, integrating into Meta’s growing AI brain trust. As part of the deal, Meta is also acquiring a stake in NFDG, the venture firm that has backed major companies such as Coinbase, Figma, CoreWeave, Perplexity, and Character.ai.
This hire is no small win. Gross is a seasoned AI operator, having previously founded the search engine Cue, which Apple acquired in 2013. He then became a top machine learning executive at Apple, contributing to the development of Siri, and later joined Y Combinator as a partner. Friedman, meanwhile, led GitHub through its post-acquisition phase under Microsoft and has co-founded multiple startups.
Although Meta has yet to officially confirm the hires, a company spokesperson acknowledged that it will “share more about our superintelligence effort and the great people joining this team in the coming weeks.”
Zuckerberg’s recruiting spree is part of a broader AI talent war that’s reaching unprecedented levels. Meta, OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and other players are racing to dominate the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) AI that could eventually surpass human intellect. This has fueled intense competition for engineers, researchers, and founders.
Zuckerberg’s recent $14.3 billion move to partner with Scale AI gave Meta a 49% stake in the company and brought in Wang and other top engineers. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s CEO, Sam Altman, claimed in a recent “Uncapped” podcast episode that Meta is offering signing bonuses up to $100 million to lure away OpenAI staff.
“I’ve heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor,” Altman said. “Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped, and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things.”
OpenAI hasn’t exactly stood still either. It reportedly spent $6.5 billion to hire famed Apple designer Jony Ive and acquire his early-stage hardware venture, io. Elsewhere, Google reabsorbed the founders of Character.ai in a massive deal last year, and Microsoft secured DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman through a $650 million acquisition of talent from Inflection AI.
The inclusion of Gross and Friedman in Meta’s AI push further intensifies the race. However, it also raises questions about the future of NFDG’s investment portfolio. Sources suggest it’s unclear how the Meta deal affects its existing bets, though the firm’s impressive track record may play a role in shaping Meta’s investment strategy moving forward.
