Mark Zuckerberg is lynching the 28-year-old CEO of Meta's investment in AI racing.
On Thursday, Meta confirmed it was buying a 49% stake in Scale AI, giving the company a valuation of over $29 billion. The tech giant spends around $15 billion on stocks.
Scale's founder and CEO Alexandr Wang joins Meta and is working on Tech Giant's AI efforts.
There are five important things you need to know about the King.
1. He's a MIT dropout.
After his freshman year, Wang was dropped from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He and co-founder Lucy Guo launched Scale AI three years ago from the well-known Silicon Valley Startup Incubator Y Combinator. The summer 2016 cohort included furniture retailer Barrow, a sports news site currently owned by the New York Times.
“The great thing about scale is that it takes advantage of opportunities hidden in front of you,” YC partner Jared Friedman said in a 2016 Accelerator blog.
Wang had a vast vision for the company.
“In the long run, we want to enhance the process that drives people in every company,” he told YC blog.
2. The King became the youngest home-built billionaire in 2021.
Three years after the cooperative scale AI, King was beginning to become a story of Silicon Valley. Forbes compared him to fellow Dropout Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.
At the age of 24, he became the youngest home-built billionaire in the world. He then fell shortly from the list of billionaires. As of June, Forbes estimates the king is worth $3.6 billion.
“If you focus on building a business, the rest will take care of yourself,” Wang told Business Insider in 2020.
The Peter Thiel's Founders Fund helped him reach unicorn status in 2019 with a $100 million investment.
Five years later, the Wang has grown his business to the world's youngest home-built billionaire.
Alexandre Wang has become the youngest home-built billionaire in the world. Scale AI
3. Wang is a frequent visitor to DC.
Like other high-tech CEOs, Wang has repeatedly traveled to Washington, with Congress and the White House considering AI policies.
Before President Donald Trump's 2024 victory, Wang attended a series of closed door-centric panel discussions by then-majority leader Chuck Schumer, along with almost all of his major technology CEOs.
Wang told lawmakers that his 2018 trip to China revealed to him that US national security relied on AI.
“The competition for AI global leadership is on track and our country's ability to efficiently adopt and implement AI defines the future of war,” Wang said in his published written testimony.
In early 2023, the king testified before a House Subcommittee on the Military Use of AI.
4. He wrote to Trump about his AI views.
The day after Trump's second inauguration, the king outlined five ways that the president could advance AI in the first 100 days. Scale released an open letter to Trump on January 21 in a full-page Washington Post ad.
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“If the United States remains in its current orbit, we risk falling and falling behind,” Wang wrote in an open letter.
The CEO writes that he hopes the US government will emulate a tech giant by spending more on data and calculations. He also wrote that the administration should establish an interagency task force to consider regulations to ensure that employment in the United States can flourish.
The King attended Trump's second inauguration.
“I am honored to be invited to take office at Capitol!” he wrote to X:
5. He's poised to become Zuckerberg's latest AI exec
On Thursday, Scale said Wang has joined the meta and is working on the company's AI efforts. He will continue to serve as director of Scales' board of directors.
Wang will be working on Meta's Superintelligence Arm. Tech Giant said in a statement that he will soon share more information about the team.
Wang wrote a note announcing his departure to expand his employees that he shared on social media on Thursday.
“The idea that it's not a scalp was frankly unthinkable. But I really spent time thinking about it, and I realized that this is a very unique moment not just for me, but for the scale,” he wrote.
“The revenue from Meta's investments will be distributed to you, who are shareholders and married stockholders,” he added.
