Scale AI CEO stresses start-up’s independence after Meta deal

Scale AI’s new leader said the data-labeling start-up remains independent from Meta Platforms despite the social media giant taking a 49 per cent stake just weeks ago, and is focused on expanding its business.

Interim Chief Executive Officer Jason Droege said Meta, a customer since 2019, will not receive special treatment even after its US$14.3 billion investment.

“There’s no preferential access that they have to anything,” Droege said Tuesday in an interview, one of his first since taking the interim CEO role in mid-June. “They are a customer, and we will support them like we do our other customers, that’s the extent of the relationship.”

Scale’s 28-year-old former CEO and co-founder Alexandr Wang left the start-up to lead a new superintelligence unit at Meta, part of the Facebook parent company’s multibillion-dollar investment to catch up on AI development. Less than a dozen of Scale’s roughly 1,500 employees left to join Wang at Meta, Droege said.

Wang will continue to hold a seat on the board, but Meta will not receive any other board representation, Droege said, adding that Scale’s customer data privacy rules and governance remains the same. The board does not have access to internal customer-specific data, he added.

“We have elaborate procedures to ensure the privacy and security of our customers – their IP, their data – and that it does not make its way across our customer base,” Droege said.