The negotiations started as just one billionaire tech founder talking to another. Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg approached Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang in mid-April about a potentially industry-shaking deal.

Meta Platforms Inc. keeps writing bigger checks in pursuit of its artificial intelligence strategy, and traders keep cheering it on, encouraged that the expensive bets will keep paying off.

Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang is such an enthusiastic networker that his former roommate — OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman — once jokingly told him to tone it down a bit.Fortunately for Wang,

Here’s what you need to know about the deal, what its implications may be, and why Wang is of such interest to Zuckerberg’s sprawling digital content company. Wang dropped out of MIT in his freshman year to co-found Scale with social media influencer and engineer Lucy Guo.

Google is reportedly cutting ties with Scale AI after Meta acquired a 49% stake in the data-labeling startup, according to Benzinga. Google was previously Scale AI’s largest customer, and it is reportedly planning to end its relationship with the company.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this year that his company will be investing heavily in artificial intelligence in 2025. And on Thursday, he put his money where his mouth is, with the parent company of Facebook and Instagram investing $14.

Meta invests $14.3B in Scale AI to fuel a new superintelligence lab—gaining infrastructure and leadership, but raising doubts about Scale’s future.

As part of the deal, Scale AI’s CEO will take a top position inside Meta, leading a new “superintelligence” lab, according to the report.

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It’s easily the most expensive hire of all time, dwarfing the billions that Google spent to rehire Noam Shazeer and his core team from Character.AI (a deal Zuckerberg passed on). “Opportunities of this magnitude often come at a cost,” Wang wrote in his note to employees this week. “In this instance, that cost is my departure.”