Over the past few years in the middle of an AI talent war, founder buyouts have become Silicon Valley's go-to dealmaking structure. Write a big cheque, take a minority stake, skip the antitrust headache of full acquisition, and walk away with the person - mostly high-profile engineers or researchers - to amp up your AI play.
Meta did this with Scale AI when it brought in Alexandr Wang to spearhead its superintelligence unit and made him chief AI officer. Two years ago, Google made a similar move when it paid Character.
