Ex Stripe CTO David Singleton and Dreamer team join Meta

Founded in 2024, Dreamer allows users to build personal AI agents.

All eyes are on personal agents as Meta adds tech sector veterans behind the AI start-up Dreamer to its ‘superintelligence’ efforts.

The founding team at Dreamer includes David Singleton, who previously spent nearly seven years as Stripe’s chief technology officer; Hugo Barra, the former vice-president of VR at Meta; and Nicholas Jitkoff, who has also spent a number of years in Meta’s VR section.

The trio is joining Meta’s Superintelligence Labs.

Alongside the team, Meta is licensing Dreamer’s technology.

Bloomberg reported that the licensing deal is non-exclusive, and that Dreamer will continue to remain its own legal entity.

Sources told the publication that Dreamer’s backers, which includes US-based VC Conviction, will be paid more than their investments.

The company said that Superintelligence Labs lead Alexandr Wang has long been in support of Dreamer.

Wang is also an investor in the start-up.

“What matters most here isn’t the early momentum, it’s what Dreamer has enabled people to do,” he wrote on a LinkedIn post .

“People are building things they’ve wanted for years.

They’re solving real, important problems no traditional software company would ever prioritise, because they’re too niche, too bespoke, too personal.”
Additionally, Meta has reportedly hired a number of AI researchers from the Allen Institute for AI (Ai2) and the University of Washington, including former Ai2 CEO Ali Farhadi.

Farhadi stepped down as the institute’s CEO earlier this month.

Meta has reportedly been spending hundreds of millions in salaries to pay its newest senior level AI hires, which includes GitHub CEO Nat Friedman; co-founder of Safe Superintelligence Daniel Gross ; Apple’s former AI-lead Ruoming Pang ; and Thinking Machines Lab’s co-founder Andrew Tulloch .

Although, alongside these hires, the company has cut hundreds of jobs at its Superintelligence Labs , and is reportedly weighing a 20pc workforce cut across its global operations.

Earlier this month, Meta snapped up the viral ‘human-free’ platform for AI agents called Moltbook , developed using OpenClaw technology.

In January, it snapped up the Chinese-founded start-up Manus for as much as $3bn.

The Manus acquisition is currently under review by Chinese authorities for potential violations of export control laws.

The New York Times reports that the Chinese government is taking actions against people linked to the acquisition.

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