Meta in Talks to Hire AI Investors Friedman and Gross, Partially Buy Out Their Venture Fund

Meta Platforms is in advanced talks to hire the prominent artificial intelligence investors Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross to help lead its AI efforts, according to a person familiar with the discussions. As part of those talks, Meta is in discussions about partially buying out Friedman and Gross’ venture capital fund, NFDG, which holds stakes in top AI startups and is worth billions of dollars on paper, the person said.

If the talks are successful, Gross would leave Safe Superintelligence, which he co-founded with former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever last year. At Meta, Gross is expected to work mostly on AI products while Friedman’s remit is expected to be broader. Both Gross and Friedman are expected to work closely with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, whose hiring by Meta was finalized last week in a $14.3 billion deal.