· Alexandr Wang, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: I mean, obviously, a deal ended up happening, so what do I know? But- [00:00:00] S0: No, but back then. We know what happened, but I'm very curious to your thinking as you're going and experiencing this. The fact that you said, "Oh, yeah, you said this, but that doesn't make sense." Why wouldn't it make sense? [00:00:00] S1: Taking a step back, obviously the iconic Meta acquisitions have been Instagram and WhatsApp, and these were very clear product logic-driven decisions. Scale is a deep enterprise, government sales, an entirely different kind of business from Meta. And so the logic that I had thought at the time would have made sense is if Meta wanted to get into those things, then I think maybe that's the industrial logic that would have made sense. But this wasn't that, because I think Mark clearly was predominantly interested in getting the Llama program or his overall AI program onto- [00:00:00] S0: He wanted talent. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah, he wanted talent. It was kind of shrouded and unclear the whole time, a lot of the way. [00:00:00] S0: When did it become clear? After the money hit the account? [00:00:00] S1: When we started talking numbers, I was like, "Oh, wow. Okay. All right." That's when things became more clear. [00:00:00] S0: Yeah, at first you're like, "Oh, this doesn't make sense." Then you guys keep talking, and then how fast did he convince you this is a good path for you?
· David Senra, Alexandr Wang
[00:00:00] S0: Yeah, at first you're like, "Oh, this doesn't make sense." Then you guys keep talking, and then how fast did he convince you this is a good path for you? [00:00:00] S1: There was a part of it which was like, "Wow, this is a really fascinating deal construct." We ultimately landed on this deal where Meta invested, owns 49% of Scale. Scale continues. Myself and a few people joined Meta. What I was kind of incredulous about at the time was like, it's such a weird kind of deal, but is one that I think genuinely kind of was this very interesting win-win-win-win, so to speak. There's a win for the shareholders of Scale, because all shareholders of Scale got a great deal, benefited a lot. Scale continues, and I truly believe the best days of Scale are ahead of it. [00:00:00] S0: My question to you is, or what I'm personally interested in is, okay, he can explain this to you and you come around to that perspective in one phone call? Is this just like, "Wait, wait, Mark, I got to think. This is so fucking crazy. I got to think about this for a few days." Explain this process as much as you can.
· David Senra, Alexandr Wang
[00:00:00] S0: My question to you is, or what I'm personally interested in is, okay, he can explain this to you and you come around to that perspective in one phone call? Is this just like, "Wait, wait, Mark, I got to think. This is so fucking crazy. I got to think about this for a few days." Explain this process as much as you can. [00:00:00] S1: Many weeks of being like, "This is insane. Is this even real? Does this make any sense? If it does make sense, how do I feel about it?" The predominant emotion was more like, "This is kind of insane." And then as I thought more about like, "Oh, I actually have to make a decision of whether or not I do this." That was in and of itself, there were a lot of conversations there with the people at Scale, with our investors. There were a lot of interesting conversations on that side. I mean, it's obviously really hard to let go of or give up your baby. [00:00:00] S0: Because you worked on Scale for how long? How many years? [00:00:00] S1: Yeah, nine years from founding until the- [00:00:00] S0: And you're still young. You're not even 30 yet. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: So this is like a third of your life.
· David Senra, Alexandr Wang
[00:00:00] S0: So this is like a third of your life. [00:00:00] S1: There was something that Paul Graham said for a long time, which is like, "If you think of your company as your life's work, you will operate differently." I did really genuinely think of Scale as my life's work for the whole time that I was working on it. That was a tough emotional process. And then I think what ultimately got me was a combination of, "Wow, this is a win-win-win-win." It's a good deal for all parties. And also just this, I saw the potential of what could happen at Meta. And this is a point at which I think Meta on AI certainly looked like damaged goods in many ways and was maybe not the most appealing place to work on AI. But I think that kind of triggered my entrepreneur side where I was like- [00:00:00] S0: Because you can essentially rebuild it. It's like a refounding of the lab. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. I think this is one of the things that ended up being kind of fascinating, which is because it was clear that there was so much work to do, it really cleared the way for me to be able to kind of build a lot of stuff up from scratch, set up the right principles, build the right culture. It created the conditions for us to build something amazing.
· Alexandr Wang, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: Yeah. I think this is one of the things that ended up being kind of fascinating, which is because it was clear that there was so much work to do, it really cleared the way for me to be able to kind of build a lot of stuff up from scratch, set up the right principles, build the right culture. It created the conditions for us to build something amazing. [00:00:00] S0: And is that how you and Mark discussed it? It's like, "Hey, we have to hit a reset here. Obviously, if we keep on this path, we're essentially going to throw out what we have and redo it with a completely different level of talent." Are these the conversations that are occurring between you and him? It didn't seem like he wanted a minor adjustment. You understand what I'm saying? He's just like, "Oh, this is not working at all. If it's not going to work, then let's rip it down to the foundation and rebuild." Correct?
· David Senra, Alexandr Wang
[00:00:00] S0: And is that how you and Mark discussed it? It's like, "Hey, we have to hit a reset here. Obviously, if we keep on this path, we're essentially going to throw out what we have and redo it with a completely different level of talent." Are these the conversations that are occurring between you and him? It didn't seem like he wanted a minor adjustment. You understand what I'm saying? He's just like, "Oh, this is not working at all. If it's not going to work, then let's rip it down to the foundation and rebuild." Correct? [00:00:00] S1: It was an evolving conversation where I think there were like... One of the things that I believe really strongly, I think Elon has demonstrated this in various times in his career, where you just have a small, incredibly cracked, highly technical team that's very flat. And if you do that, you can accomplish a lot very, very quickly. So, that was something that I had a lot of conviction in, and I believed in AI, that is the right approach, especially if you had to do what we had to do, which is move very, very quickly. And I think early on, that was one of the things that I talked to Mark a lot about, and I think he was excited about as well. That ended up becoming one of the tent poles of our overall strategies, like small, very flat, highly technical team, very high talent density. How quickly can you move if you have those ingredients? [00:00:00] S0: From an outside perspective, it just seems like Mark empties the clip, is the way I think about this, right? Have you ever read this book called "The Mind of Napoleon"?