At this point, it is easy to say which AI startups Mark Zuckerberg Not there. Focused on receiving.
In addition to Ilya Sutaskewar Safe superintendent Ress Meera Murati Thinking machine lab And Perplexity, AI-Native Google rival. None of these talks proceeded in the phase of the formal proposal for various reasons, including disagreement on the prices of the deal and strategy, but together they say how there is aggressively zuckerberg. Canceling the industry To reboot your AI efforts.
Now, the details about the team are beginning to look at Zuckerberg Assemblying: SSI co-founder and CEO Daniel Gross, With the CEO of East-Githib Nut Freedman, Meta AI is ready to co-in-laws. Both men will report Alexandra WangEast -scale CEO Zuckerberg Just paid more than $ 14 billion to rent quicklyWang said goodbye to his scale team last Friday and was in the Meta office on Monday. This week, he is meeting with the top Meta leaders (more on him) and continues to recruit for the new AI team. Zuckerberg has tasked him. I hope that the team will be unveiled as soon as the next week.
Instead to join Meta, Sataskewar, Murati and Perplexity CEOs Arvind Srinivas All have gone to raise more money on high evaluation. Sutskever, A Titan of the AI research community, who co-established the openi, Recently raised A few billion dollars for SSI. Both Meta and Google are investors in their company, I have been told. Murati too Bus raised A few billion dollars. Neither he nor Sutskever is close to releasing a product. Meanwhile, is in Srinivas Extending process For about 500 million dollars.
The spokespersons of all the companies involved either refused to comment or did not respond on time to publication. Information And CNBC First reported Zuckerberg’s conversation with safe superintendent, while Bloomberg First reported seriousness talks.
While Zuckerberg’s recruitment drives are inspired by urgency to fix the AI strategy of Meta, the situation also highlights the terrible competition for top AI talent these days. In my conversation this week, the people inside the industry are not surprised by Zuckerberg making nine-centers-or even, yes, 10-inkra-the most good AI provides compensation for the best AI talent. There are some senior people in Openai, for example, who have already been compensated in that ballpark, thanks to the company’s meteorite increase in the valuation in the last few years.
Talking about Openai, it is clear that CEO Sam Altman At least Zuckerberg’s hiring is slightly stunning. His decision Appear on his brother’s podcast This week and says “None of our best people” is not going to the meta, perhaps to express the status of strength, but in fact, it seems that he is throwing his former colleagues under the bus. I was confused with Altman’s suggestion that much payment for meta talent would not “establish a great culture.” Finally, did not do Openai Just pay $ 6.5 billion For rent Johnny Eve And his small hardware team?
“We think Chashma is the best form factor for AI”
When I joined with a zoom call Alex HimelVP of Wearbals of Meta, this week, he received a call with Zuckerberg’s new AI chief, Alexandra Wang,
“The increasing number of Alex I talk regularly,” Himel jokingly said that we started our conversation about Meta New glasses released with Okle“I was just in my first meeting with him. There were three people in a room with the camera, and I was liked,” Who’s talking right now? ” And then I was so, ‘Oh, hey, this is Alex.’ ,
The following Q&A is edited for length and clarity:
How did you meet with Alex now?
The meeting was about how to make AI as terrible as it could be for glasses. Obviously, glasses have some unique use cases that do not make accessories on your phone. The thing we are trying to find out is how to balance all, because AI can be everything for all or it can be stunning for cases of more specific use.
We are trying to find out how to balance the right because the underlying Lama model has a ton accession and the entire pipeline we do not care about the glasses. Then there are accessories, we really care, such as egoistic scenes and trying to feed videos in models to really help in cases of some aspiring use that we will not build otherwise.
You are referring to this new lineup with okla as “AI Glass”. Is this a new branding for this category? They are AI glasses, not smart glasses?
We refer to the category as AI glasses. You saw the Orion. You Used it for a long time in the demo than someone elseWhich I appreciate you. We used to think that you need to hit the scale for this new category. You needed a large area to see and display to overlay virtual content. Our opinion about it has definitely changed. We feel that we can hit a rapid scale, and AI is why we think it is possible.
Right now, the top two uses for glasses have to take audio – phone calls, music, podcasts – and taking photos and videos. We look at the participation rates of our active users, and they are another two since the launch. Audio is one. There is a very close photo and video.
AI has been number three since the beginning. As we are launching more markets – now we are in 18 – and we are adding more features, AI is crawling. Our biggest investment by a mile on the software side is AI functionality, as we think glasses are the best form factor for AI. They are some that you are already wearing all the time. They can see what you see. They can hear what you hear. They are super accessible.
Is your goal AI superased audio and the most commonly used feature for glasses for photos, or is it not how you think about it?
From a mathematics point of view, best, you can tie. We want AI to be something that is used more often by more people. We think there is definitely a place for audio to be better. To be better image is definitely placed for quality. AI accessories have a lot of headroom.
How much is AI on Cloud vs. Glasses? I think you have a lot of physical obstacles with such devices.
Now we have found a billion-parameter model that can walk on the frame. So, fast, there is the stuff. Then we have the goods running on the phone.
If you were watching WWDC, Apple made some announcements, which we have not yet got a chance to test, but we are excited about it. There is a Wi-Fi Aware API. Every time we should be able to transfer photos and videos without tapping that annoying dialog box. it’s going to be great. The second processor was a background access, which should allow us to process image when the media moves. Sinking will work in the same way it does on Android.
Do you think the market will be as big as the market for these new okle glasses? Or is it more niche because they are more outside and athlete-centered?
We work with essilorloxottica, which is a great companion. Ray-ban is his biggest brand. Within it, the most popular style is Wafe. When we launched the original Ray-Bain Meta Glass, we went with the most popular style for the most popular brand.
His second largest brand is Okle. Many people wear them. Halbrook is really popular. HSTN, which we are launching is a truly popular analog frame. We quickly see people using Ray-Ban Meta Glasses for cases of active use. This performance is our first step in the category. There is much more to come.
What is your response to Google announcements in I/O for your XR glasses platform and iweer partnership?
We are now working with essilorloxottica for five years. This is a long time for a partnership. Actually it takes a little time to enter the sink. I feel great about our partnership situation. We are able to work quickly. Okle Meta Glass is the fastest program we have done a lot. It took less than nine months.
I felt that the demo he (Google) was very good. I felt that some of them were very compelling. He did not announce a product, so I especially cannot react to what they are doing. It is flattering that people see the traction that we are receiving and want to jump at the same time.
On the AR Glass Front, what are you learning from Orion now that you are showing it in the outside world?
We are going on it at full speed. We have actually hit some very good interior milestones for its next version, which we plan to sell. The greatest learning from using them is that we feel rapidly good about input and interaction models with eye tracking and nerve bands. I wore me during march madness in office. I was really watching the game. Picture yourself sitting on a table with a virtual TV above the head of the people. It was amazing.
- Tiktok continues to work illegally. As expected, President Trump Extended their imprancers time limit For the law that has banned China -owned Ticketkok in the US. It is necessary to understand what is really happening here: Trump is instructing his Attorney General to not apply Earth-Battering Fines to Apple, Google, and every other American company that helps to operate Tiktok. The idea that he will not use this huge benefit to remove whatever he wants from these companies, and the entire process makes fun of everyone involved, not to mention the American legal system.
- Amazon AI will hire fewer people. When you make an employee memorandum A press releaseYou are trying to tell the whole world what is coming. In this case, CEO of Amazon Andy Jassi It wants to clarify that he is going to embrace AI completely to cut costs. About 30 percent of Amazon’s code is already written by AI, and I am sure Jassi is looking to further automatically to automate human-intensive areas, such as sales and customer service.
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As usual, I welcome your response, especially if you too have rejected Zak. Can you answer here or Ping me safely on the signal,