FILE PHOTO: Jason Droege speaks at the WSJTECH live conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S. October 22, 2019.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Scale AI’s Interim CEO Jason Droege said in a memo on Wednesday that the artificial intelligence startup is not changing course following Meta’s multibillion-dollar investment in the company last week.
“Unlike some other recent tech deals you might have heard about in the AI space, this is not a pivot or a winding down,” Droege wrote in a post directed at customers, employees and investors.
Meta has a 49% stake in Scale after its $14.3 billion investment, though the social media company will not have any voting power. Scale AI’s founder Alexandr Wang, along with a small number of other Scale employees, will join Meta as part of the agreement.
“Scale remains, unequivocally, an independent company,” Droege wrote. “This deal rewards many of the people who helped build Scale into what it is today, but more importantly to me, it’s also a validation of the course we’re on.”
Scale AI appointed Droege, the company’s chief strategy officer, to serve as its interim chief executive following the deal. Droege wrote that Scale AI is still “a well-resourced company” that has “multiple promising lines of business.”
Founded in 2016, Scale AI rose to prominence by helping major tech companies like OpenAI, Google and Microsoft prepare data they use to train cutting-edge AI models. Meta has been one of Scale AI’s biggest customers.
Droege said the company is “not slowing down” and remains committed to its data and application business units. Scale will also continue to be model agnostic, he added.
“The need for high-quality data for AI models remains significant, and with the largest network of experts training AI, we are set up well to help model builders keep pushing the frontier of what’s possible,” Droege wrote.
But some of Scale AI’s tech customers may be having doubts.
OpenAI confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday that it has been wrapping up its work with Scale AI over the past six to 12 months. The company said it’s looking to work with other data providers that have kept pace with innovation, and that its decision to wind down its work with Scale wasn’t influenced by the Meta partnership.
Google is also reportedly cutting ties with Scale following the company’s deal with Meta, according to a report from Reuters. Google declined to comment.
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