OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever says he’s entering into the CEO function at Protected Superintelligence, the AI startup he launched in 2024. In a publish on X, Sutskever confirmed Thursday that Daniel Gross, the startup’s co-founder and CEO, departed the corporate as of June 29. Protected Superintelligence co-founder Daniel Levy is turning into president of the startup, in line with Sutskever.
The announcement follows weeks of reporting that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in advanced talks to hire Gross, in addition to his longtime investing associate, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. At one level, Zuckerberg reportedly tried to accumulate all of Protected Superintelligence, a startup most not too long ago valued at $32 billion. Sutskever addressed these reviews as effectively.
“You might need heard rumors of firms trying to purchase us. We’re flattered by their consideration however are targeted on seeing our work by means of,” stated Sutskever. “Now we have the compute, we have now the workforce, and we all know what to do. Collectively we’ll maintain constructing secure superintelligence.”
Naturally, Gross’ departure might increase questions across the startup. If Protected Superintelligence was near its aim — absolutely a groundbreaking expertise, because it’s described — why would its co-founder depart to start out one thing new, seemingly at Meta?
Notably, Protected Superintelligence describes themselves because the world’s “first straight-shot SSI lab,” that means the corporate has no different merchandise or ambitions exterior of creating, effectively, secure superintelligence. That’s the title, that’s the product, that’s their entire factor. Sutskever began Protected Superintelligence shortly after leaving OpenAI, the place he performed a task within the transient ousting of CEO Sam Altman.
In the meantime, it appears probably that Meta Superintelligence Labs will develop expertise that powers numerous the corporate’s merchandise. In Zuckerberg’s memo asserting the brand new unit, he referenced Meta’s experience in constructing and rising merchandise that attain billions of individuals, and cited the early wins Meta has had in AI wearables.
Which means Gross, who beforehand led AI groups at Apple after the iPhone maker acquired his startup, may have a extra acquainted function at Meta, ought to he be a part of. Zuckerberg has additionally nabbed some top researchers from OpenAI and Google DeepMind to fill out his new AI workforce.
However, Sutskever might have his fingers full as Protected Superintelligence’s CEO. Whereas he’s held earlier high-ranking positions, akin to OpenAI’s chief scientist, the CEO function might include new challenges — akin to elevating new capital from buyers and recruiting high expertise. Sutskever notes in his publish that he’ll proceed to supervise Protected Superintelligence’s technical workforce.