Meta has made headlines by acquiring 24-year-old artificial intelligence expert Matt Deitke for a reported $250 million, marking one of the tech industry’s most high-profile talent acquisitions. The move was reportedly driven by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who personally doubled the company’s initial offer to secure Deitke’s expertise.
Deitke is recognized as a pioneer in multimodal AI and gained prominence through his work at the Allen Institute for AI, where he co-created the open-source model Molmo. He later co-founded Vercept, a startup that raised $16 million to develop Vy, an autonomous desktop agent. Vy attracted attention for its performance in several applications, although it faced criticism for operating sluggishly in programs like Chrome and Apple Numbers.
This investment reflects Meta’s aggressive strategy to lead in artificial intelligence. The company has spent over $1 billion recruiting elite AI specialists and plans to allocate $72 billion in capital expenditures next year to support its Superintelligence Lab. The escalating competition for AI talent has led to soaring compensation offers that rival those of star athletes, underscoring the critical value of top researchers in the race to dominate the next era of technology.
