Meta Hires Ex-Snap Team for Superintelligence Lab
Meta is aggressively building its AI talent, hiring the ex-Snapchat engineering team behind the app Gizmo for its Superintelligence Labs. The move comes as Mark Zuckerberg also reportedly cut ties with AI chief Alexandr Wang, signaling a major leadership and talent shuffle in its AI division.
The newly acquired team from Atma Sciences Inc. includes co-founders and former Snapchat engineers Josh Siegel (CEO) and Daniel Amitay (CTO). Their app, Gizmo, allowed users to create interactive mini-apps and games from simple text prompts, a concept part of a growing trend known as 'vibe-coding'. Prior to the Meta deal, Atma Sciences had raised approximately $5.48 million from investors. This talent acquisition is part of a broader, aggressive strategy by Mark Zuckerberg to staff the company's Superintelligence Labs. The lab's stated goal is to develop "personal superintelligence," a form of AI that deeply understands users to help them achieve their goals, moving beyond current generative AI applications. Zuckerberg has been personally involved in recruiting, offering compensation packages reportedly ranging from seven to nine figures to attract top talent from competitors like OpenAI and Google. The leadership of the Superintelligence Labs itself is the result of a significant strategic move. In June 2025, Meta invested a reported $14.3 billion for a 49% non-voting stake in Scale AI, a data-labeling startup. This deal brought Scale AI's founder, Alexandr Wang, to Meta to lead the superintelligence efforts. This major investment and Wang's appointment were followed by the departure of Meta's longtime chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, in November 2025. LeCun, a respected pioneer in the field, reportedly disagreed with the company's direction and the new leadership structure which would have had him reporting to the much younger Wang. The shake-up signaled a strategic shift from long-term research towards more rapid, product-focused AI deployment.
