Meta’s ambition to dominate the worldwide synthetic intelligence (AI) race has reached dramatic new heights in 2025. Not solely did the Menlo Park-based tech big restructure its complete AI division to create the brand new Superintelligence Labs, nevertheless it additionally started providing eight-figure salaries in a frenzied try and poach expertise from rivals. The recruitment offensive has largely paid off, with the corporate efficiently attracting workers from distinguished corporations reminiscent of OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic.
These strikes made strategic sense. The targets have been senior researchers and engineers in pivotal roles, constructing merchandise that immediately competed for a similar slice of the AI market pie Meta was chasing. By poaching this expertise, Meta strengthened itself whereas weakening its rival — one of many oldest tips within the Silicon Valley playbook.
However then, according to The Wall Avenue Journal, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unexpectedly set his sights on a startup that neither had a product available on the market nor immediately competed with the tech big. Nonetheless, Zuckerberg was reportedly so fascinated with this startup that he supplied to purchase it. Regardless of not having a product, a prototype, or a market-ready expertise, the co-founder and CEO of the corporate reportedly refused the acquisition request.
Annoyed, Zuckerberg turned his consideration to the corporate’s 50 workers, providing them extravagant compensation packages, WSJ reported, citing individuals aware of the matter. Meta reportedly supplied the corporate’s different co-founder, Andrew Tulloch, a compensation package deal price $1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,700 crore) over six years, together with bonuses and inventory efficiency.
Tulloch mentioned no. The entire different workers declined the pay cheques as effectively. If WSJ’s sources are to be believed, this marked the primary overwhelming defeat in Meta’s aggressive AI expertise struggle, and on the centre of all of it was the CEO of the Considering Machines Lab, Mira Murati.
Who Is Mira Murati?
Born in 1988 in Albania, Murati moved to Canada for her schooling and later to america, the place she earned twin levels: a Bachelor of Arts from Colby School in 2011 and a Bachelor of Engineering from Dartmouth School in 2012. After working at Tesla as a product supervisor on the Mannequin X and a short stint on the augmented actuality startup Leap Movement, she joined OpenAI in 2018. She was promoted to Vice President of Utilized AI and Partnerships in 2020.
In Could 2022, Murati was elevated to the function of Chief Know-how Officer (CTO). In that capability, she oversaw growth of OpenAI’s most influential merchandise, together with ChatGPT, DALL-E, Codex, and Sora. She additionally emerged as a number one voice on AI security and aligning giant language fashions with human values.
Murati’s identify made headlines in November 2023, when she briefly served as interim CEO of OpenAI following Sam Altman’s removing by the board. Nonetheless, this lasted merely three days, as she was changed by Emmett Shear, who was himself eliminated when Altman was reinstated 5 days later. Murati was as soon as once more made the CTO of the corporate. She stepped down in September 2024 and went on to found Considering Machines Lab in February 2025.
As talked about earlier, the startup, which is structured as a public profit company, has not but introduced a product. Nonetheless, the corporate’s website describes its mission as growing human-AI collaboration, with an emphasis on constructing multimodal, versatile, adaptable, and personalised programs that work alongside individuals.
Regardless of working in stealth, Considering Machine Lab raised $2 billion (roughly Rs. 17,400 crore) in its preliminary funding spherical led by Andreessen Horowitz, Nvidia, AMD, and Cisco.
In stepping away from OpenAI and rejecting probably the most aggressive hiring performs the AI trade has seen, Murati has turned full focus to Considering Machines Lab, an organization that continues to function in stealth, but attracts capital and expertise at scale. What precisely she is constructing stays unclear, however in Silicon Valley, that sort of silence usually speaks volumes.