Photo illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Meta is cutting several hundred roles from its AI unit even as it continues to hire for its newer TBD Lab, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: The company concluded that its long-standing AI efforts had become overly bureaucratic and hopes the reorganization will create a more agile operation, according to an internal memo seen by Axios.
- "By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact," Meta chief AI officer Alexandr Wang wrote in the memo.
Driving the news: Meta is cutting roughly 600 positions out of the several thousand roles within Meta's superintelligence lab.
- The cuts will affect the company's FAIR AI research, product-related AI and AI infrastructure units, while sparing the newly formed TBD Lab unit.
- U.S. employees will learn by 7am Pacific time Wednesday whether their jobs are affected, Wang said in the memo.
- The company is encouraging affected employees to apply for other jobs within Meta and expects most will find another position internally.
- "This is a talented group of individuals, and we need their skills in other parts of the company," Wang said.
The other side: The company is still actively recruiting and hiring for its TBD Lab unit.
- Most recently, the company hired OpenAI research scientist Ananya Kumar, according to a source.
- Before that, Meta nabbed Andrew Tulloch, a co-founder of Mira Murati's Thinking Machines.
Between the lines: CEO Mark Zuckerberg grew concerned several months ago that the company's existing AI efforts weren't leading to needed breakthroughs or improved performance.
- That conclusion led to this reorganization, the launch of TBD Labs, and the pricey hiring binge that coincided with Meta's $15 billion investment in Scale AI and the hiring of Wang.
- "I'm really excited about the models we're training, our compute plans and the products we're building, and I'm confident in our path to build towards superintelligence," Wang said in the memo.