FILE PHOTO: Jason Droege speaks at the WSJTECH live conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S. October 22, 2019.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Scale AI plans to promote Chief Strategy Officer Jason Droege to serve as its new CEO, with founder Alexandr Wang heading to Meta as part of a multibillion-dollar deal with the company, CNBC has confirmed.
Meta is finalizing a $14 billion investment into artificial intelligence startup Scale AI, CNBC reported earlier this week. Wang will help lead a new AI research lab at Meta and will be joined by some of his colleagues. The New York Times was first to report about the new AI lab.
Bloomberg first reported that Droege was picked to be the new CEO. CNBC confirmed Scale AI’s plans with a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because of confidentiality. Scale AI and Droege didn’t respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Droege joined Scale AI in August of 2024, according to his LinkedIn profile. Prior to his role at the startup, he served as a venture partner at Benchmark and a vice president at Uber.
Founded in 2016, Scale AI has achieved a high profile in the industry by helping major tech companies like OpenAI, Google and Microsoft prepare data they use to train cutting-edge AI models.
Meta has been pouring billions of dollars into AI, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been frustrated with its progress. Zuckerberg will be counting on Wang to better execute Meta’s AI ambitions following the tepid reception of the company’s latest Llama AI models.
Meta will take a 49% stake in Scale AI with its investment, The Information reported.
–CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report