Artificial Intelligence · Profile from AI Research Companion
Scale AI
The San Francisco data company, founded in 2016 by Alexandr Wang and Lucy Guo, that built the largest business in AI's least glamorous layer: turning human judgement into training data. Scale labelled camera and lidar frames for self-driving programmes, then became the main outside supplier of expert-written examples, preference ratings and evaluations for frontier labs' post-training (section 09), and from 2023 a defence-AI contractor. Revenue reached ~$870m in 2024 (reported). In June 2025 Meta paid ~$14.3bn for a 49% non-voting stake and hired Wang to run Meta Superintelligence Labs. Within weeks Scale's largest lab customers, led by Google, had pulled back, and Scale cut ~14% of staff. By late 2026 it was a different company: led by former Google Cloud executive Francis deSouza (CEO from 10 August 2026), selling AI applications to enterprises and the Pentagon, and projecting more than $1bn of 2026 revenue (company claim, reported).
At a glance
- Founded
- 2016, San Francisco, by Alexandr Wang (then 19, an MIT dropout who had worked at Quora) and Lucy Guo; Y Combinator, summer 2016 batch (reported). Guo left in 2018
- Headquarters
- San Francisco; offices in New York, Washington DC area, St. Louis, London and elsewhere (reported, verify)
- Ownership / structure
- Private. Meta holds 49% (non-voting, June 2025). Other investors include Accel, Index Ventures, Founders Fund, Y Combinator, Tiger Global, Coatue, Thrive, Greenoaks, Wellington, Nvidia, Amazon, Intel Capital, AMD Ventures, Cisco and ServiceNow Ventures (reported)
- Leadership (2026)
- Francis deSouza (CEO from 10 August 2026; former Google Cloud COO and ex-Illumina CEO); Jason Droege (interim CEO June 2025–August 2026, supporting the transition); Alexandr Wang (left for Meta in June 2025 as Chief AI Officer; stays on Scale's board, reported)
- AI products
- Data Engine / GenAI Data Engine (labelling, RLHF data, expert data); Remotasks and Outlier (contributor platforms); Scale Evaluation and SEAL leaderboards; Scale Donovan, Defense Llama and Thunderforge (defence); Scale GenAI Platform and enterprise applications
- Scale
- Revenue ~$870m (2024, reported) and a ~$2bn target for 2025 before the Meta deal (reported); >$1bn projected for 2026 (company, reported); enterprise and government applications ~$200m annualised (reported, 2026, verify date); ~1,400–1,500 staff before the July 2025 cuts (reported; the ~200 cuts were described as ~14%, implying ~1,400), ~1,300 after (reported, verify); a contributor workforce of hundreds of thousands (reported, verify)
- Capital raised
- Series A ~$4.5m (2016–17, Accel, verify); Series B ~$18m (2018, Index, verify); Series C $100m at >$1bn (August 2019, Founders Fund); Series D $155m at ~$3.5bn (December 2020, Tiger, verify); Series E $325m at ~$7bn (April 2021); Series F $1bn at $13.8bn (21 May 2024, Accel lead); Meta ~$14.3bn for 49% (June 2025, valuing Scale at ~$29bn)
- Key relationships
- Meta (49% owner and customer); OpenAI, Google, xAI (former major customers that cut back in 2025); Microsoft (Thunderforge partner); Anduril (Thunderforge partner); US Army XVIII Airborne Corps, CDAO and DIU (defence); Center for AI Safety (Humanity's Last Exam)
- Signature moves (incl. failures)
- Self-driving data founding (2016); Remotasks and the unicorn rounds (2019–21); the RLHF pivot to frontier-lab data (2023); Donovan and the defence bet (2023); the $13.8bn Series F (2024); the contractor lawsuits and labour probes (2024–25); the Meta 49% stake and customer exits (2025); the July 2025 layoffs and the Mercor lawsuit (2025); deSouza and the applications pivot (2026)
9 strategic moves analysed
Each one gets a full strategy file in the companion: context, the decision, the financing, what happened, and the lesson.
2016
Founding and Self Driving Data
Founding
2019
Remotasks and the Unicorn Rounds
Launch (workforce platform) / funding round
2023
Donovan and the Defense Bet
Launch / government contracts
2023
RLHF Pivot and Frontier Lab Data
Pivot
2024
Contractor Lawsuits and Labour Probes
Lawsuit / regulatory action (failure)
2024
Series F at 13 8bn
Funding round
2025
Layoffs and the Mercor Lawsuit
Restructuring / lawsuit (failure and defensive move)
2025
Meta 49pct Stake and Customer Exits
Partnership / licence-and-hire (minority investment plus hire of the CEO)
2026
deSouza CEO and the Applications Pivot
Leadership change / pivot