Meta’s AI Reorganization in Focus Today

0:00Meta has made some big announcements that they're calling regular corporate restructuring, but some people see them as massive pump on the brakes when it comes to their AI hiring hiring. something that Zuckerberg has been spending billions of dollars on in the last month. So today on the podcast, I want to break down basically what the new restructuring is, what people inside of Meta are saying, and just how much money they have spent that possibly could lead to a massive headache for shareholders. Let's get into all of that. Before we do, I wanted to mention, if you want to try any of the models that I talk about on the podcast here, I would love for you to try out my own startup, which is called AIbox.ai.

0:35I recently released a beta that allows you to access the top 40 AI models all on one platform for$20 a month. So if you want to try that out, you can go check it out at AIbox.ai. I'll leave a link in the description. All right, let's get into what's going on over at Meta. So apparently they have frozen their hiring at their AI organization after a quote unquote restructuring of the unit that happened earlier this week. This is all reports from the Wall Street Journal. and basically this hiring freeze is going to follow what has been a month of poaching more than 50 AI researchers and engineers from competitors.

1:07They got these, a lot of them were from Google. A lot of them came from open AI. Some came from XAI. Basically they stole them from everywhere and they offered up to a billion dollars. There's different pay packages where they would offer exploding pay packages, meaning, you know, you had like four hours to accept it and they would have a billion dollar as an offer. And basically that vested over four a year. So probably shares and probably cash, you know,$250 million a year is insane to pay to a AI researcher, a lot of people said. So a lot of people actually kind of criticize them for the exploding, getting to the exploding offers and stuff being like, oh, Mark Zuckerberg is just trying to pressure people into it.

1:41In my opinion, though, I mean, if you're paying someone a billion dollars, if they say, no, you got to move on to the next person, they're trying to hire 50 of these guys who can't pay probably 50 billion. So they got to just look, you get four hours, if you don't do it, we'll move on to the next person. I mean, kind of makes sense with how fast they're trying to move. So this freeze that the Wall Street Journal has been reporting on apparently went into effect last week. It's not clear how long it's actually going to last for. According to TechCrunch, Meta is still likely working through this reorganization, which splits its AI unit, which is the Meta Super Intelligence Lab, into four new groups.

2:12So originally they had the TBD Labs, which is basically run by the former Scale AI founder, Alexander Wang. And then they had three other groups. They had one focused on research, product, and integration. Sorry, product integration, and then infrastructure. So infrastructure, product, research are the three other groups. Now, when, you know, asked about this, basically, Alexander Wang actually came out on X recently and said, we are truly only investing more and more into meta super intelligence labs as a company, any reporting to the contrary of that is clearly mistaken. So, you know, some, you know, him and a bunch of other people are like, no, this is just a restructuring thing where we're changing things around.

2:49It's not really that we're like not making any more investments. I think a A lot of people in the comments of his posts were kind of critical. Someone said, after making this post, he instructed his daily direct report, Jan Lekun, to go get him his daily coffee. People are kind of making fun of Jan Lekun, who used to be basically in charge of meta AI. And now that there's all these different departments, seems like he's sort of been demoted. Zuckerberg was mad that meta AI wasn't further ahead than it was. Someone else responded and said, we know Superintelligence Labs achievements are extraordinary so far.

3:18And they posted a screenshot of Facebook where it said, chat with an AI character. And it's like Russian girl, stepmom. And I don't know, these screenshots a lot of people have raised eyebrows at of why exactly are they promoting, especially with like a photo that looks just like a real normal person. Anyways, this is obviously really big news. So one thing that I did think was interesting is basically the restructuring plan. So what is actually happening here? Basically, on Friday, the information reported that Meta was preparing to tear down its existing AI organization and reorganize it. So these are the four groups that we have now later found out about.

3:54All of this was announced by the CEO, well, by ScaleAI's former founder and CEO, Alexander Wang. So he joined Meta as the chief AI officer in June. So he's kind of the one that's putting out a lot of this information, which is interesting because in the past, it was Yan LeCun who was putting this out. But then he had some beef with Elon. So he got off Twitter and he was only on threads and everyone else forgot about him in the whole world because it's basically where all the tech community talks. and so it seems like he's sort of been replaced especially because I feel like a leadership role like this really does need like a very um a very vocal person that can go and actually talk about what's going on and so if you're not willing to talk on x I think you know basically like for example Sam Altman should be willing to go on x and Facebook and Reddit and everywhere else and he really does Sam Altman does a great job of that going on every platform I think Yan Lekun did not like to engage on x because he didn't like Elon and so basically that kind of um that may have contributed to his being demoted.

4:51Okay, so this whole new basic reorganization, the central new group is called TBD Labs, which is going to be run by Alexander. And it's basically focused on foundational models, all of the LAMA series models in its latest release, which came out in April. The other three groups are basically kind of the research, the product integration infrastructure that I mentioned earlier. So this is kind of interesting. Right now, Zuckerberg apparently is not happy that he is being out recruited by or was being outdone by a lot of his companies. Google is making absolutely massive strides in the industry.

5:24So Meta did confirm that there was a hiring freeze and that they said this to the Wall Street Journal and said that it was, quote, basic organizational planning after bringing people on board and undertaking yearly budgeting and planning exercises. So while Alexander Wang is like, no, look, like we're going to we're just keep making more and more investments like Meta did technically confirm that they are freezing hiring. And a lot of people are saying, well, you just spend billions of dollars on all of these top AI researchers. And it seems like they, you know, don't have an infinite amount of money to spend.

5:56So CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making a massive push right now to get his AI ahead. He sparked a massive talent war and he's personally calling these top researchers and engineers to offer them the pay packages. It's not like, you know, someone at Meta HR is calling. It's Mark Zuckerberg on the phone trying to get you over to his company. He's been hiring a bunch of startups. He's trying to get their leadership. And a lot of analysts have warned that the rise of basically a stock-based compensation is going to cost shareholders a lot of money. Mark Zuckerberg has a lot of control over the company, so he can basically do what he wants.

6:26But this is kind of the criticism that he's been getting from, I think, some of his investors, some of his shareholders, and a lot of analysts that are saying, hold on, you're offering a billion dollars to researchers. You're pulling in 50 new researchers. You know, how much is this? Now, to Mark Zuckerberg, I think he knows that there is a real cost if he loses the quote-unquote AI race. If he's not able to keep up with competitors, people will stop using Meta AI, and this major tool that he spent billions of dollars on is going to, you know, suffer a very bad fate. I don't think he wants to be in this spot where Apple is right now, where he would have to rely on OpenAI or Anthropic or someone else to build his LLM if he seems like he's capable of it.

7:03So I think he's going to pull out all of the stops. He has an enormous amount of control over Meta's and Facebook, basically their equity and their shares. So he can basically decide what he wants to do. And I think a lot of people forget this is the guy that spent tens of billions of dollars, quote unquote, wasted on the metaverse, which never really materialized in the same way we would, I think, he promised. And so now that he's switching to AI, I think people are, they're acting all shocked about how much money he's paying. But I think this is just par for the course with Meta and basically Mark Zuckerberg's style.

7:34So I'll keep you up to date on everything happening in this story. Thanks so much for tuning into the podcast. If you learned anything new, make sure to rate and review the podcast wherever you get them. And make sure to go check out AIbox.ai. Link is in the description. You get all of the top models for$20 a month. Hope it saves you a ton of time and also helps you discover a bunch of really powerful models you may not have tried before. Image, audio, text, and a lot of other cool stuff. Thanks so much for tuning in. See you later.