Alexandr Wang, the 28-year-old hired by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to lead the company’s AI arm – Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) – has defended layoffs in an internal memo. According to a report by Axios, Meta is laying off around 600 employees within the company’s AI lab.
‘Reducing team will mean fewer conversations’
Wang explained that the reduced headcount is intended to streamline decision-making. “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,” he said, per a report by Axios.
The layoffs will affect FAIR AI research, product-related AI, and AI infrastructure units. The newly formed TBD Lab unit, however, will remain unaffected, the outlet further reported.
The impacted employees can apply for other roles within the company, and Wang is confident that they will find positions internally. “This is a talented group of individuals, and we need their skills in other parts of the company,” he had said, per Axios report.
He further expressed his excitement about the ongoing projects. “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.”
While some teams are facing layoffs, Meta continues to hire for various roles in the TBD Lab, which remains untouched by the job cuts.
‘Superintelligence is coming,’ said Wang in August
In a bold “Superintelligence is coming” memo in August this year, Wang set the tone for a major restructuring. At the time, he dissolved the AGI Foundations organisation and “moved employees into the right areas”.
He also announced three key changes to the company’s organisational design to accelerate growth. “Centralising core, fundamental research efforts in TBD Lab and FAIR. Bolstering our product efforts with applied research that will work on product-focused models. Establishing a unified, core infrastructure team to support our research bets,” the August memo stated.
At present, Shengjia Zhao is Chief Scientist for MSL, Nat Friedman is leading the product effort, and Rob Fergus is leading FAIR with Yann LeCun as its Chief Scientist. Aparna Ramani is leading the MSL infra team.
“I recognise that org changes can be disruptive, but I truly believe that taking the time to get this structure right now will allow us to reach superintelligence with more velocity over the long term. We’re still working through updated rhythms and our collaboration model across teams, including when we’ll come together as a full MSL org,” he had said in an internal memo in August.
