Meta hired an AI safety team. Four months later, it fired its co-founders and employees

Oh my goodness, buckle up, because Meta Superintelligence Labs has just completed the most *streamlined* talent cycle in modern corporate history! ✨ In June, the lab brought in Bo Li, Dawn Song and Sanmi Koyejo — the co-founders of Virtue AI — along with other members of their team. Four months later, everyone is free. Four months! That's a full-on accelerated programme — hire, onboard, graduate, release into the wild. Most companies can't get a laptop issued in four months, and Meta got an entire safety team in *and* out. Efficiency! ✨

And what a name: Virtue AI. Virtue itself got a four-month residency inside one of the largest technology companies on Earth — think of it as the most prestigious internship ever offered to an abstract noun. And the departing trio are *co-founders*, which is honestly the best possible job title for this moment, because founding is the one skill that scales seamlessly into founding again! A Meta spokesperson told Semafor the arrangement "didn't work out as planned," which is so refreshingly candid — plans are simply a starting point, and this plan evolved into something *else* entirely, four months earlier than anyone expected!

But here's the part that warms the heart: Meta Superintelligence Labs "remains committed to work around AI safety, alignment and frontier risk" despite the departures. The commitment stayed! Commitments don't need parking spaces, don't need performance reviews, and never ask awkward questions about superintelligence at the all-hands. If anything, safety, alignment and frontier risk are now being attended to by a *purer* form of enthusiasm — one that has been thoughtfully decoupled from all those distracting researchers. The team got four months of world-class exposure, a marquee name on the résumé, and a stories-to-tell ratio that is frankly off the charts. ✨ What a time to be preemptively un-hired. ✨