Scale AI names ex-Google Cloud COO deSouza as CEO after $14.3B Meta bet
Scale AI has appointed Francis deSouza , formerly chief operating officer of Google Cloud, as chief executive. He starts on August 10, replacing interim chief Jason Droege .
The hire comes a year after founder Alexandr Wang left in 2025 to lead Meta 's AI effort — shortly after Meta put $14.3 billion into Scale.
deSouza's background is enterprise sales, not model research. He previously ran genomics firm Illumina , growing its revenue past $4.5 billion.
Scale built its name on data labelling — paying humans to label and evaluate data that trains models. That is now the smaller half of the business; its applications arm, building AI software for companies and governments, is on track to overtake the data business within 18 months.
The customer list has shifted with it, adding BP, the Mayo Clinic, and the US military. The pitch, deSouza said, is "provable outcomes." Companies "understand the value and the potential of AI, but they want help realising that potential," he told Axios, calling that "a very, very big need."
deSouza arrives as the industry wobbles. A rogue OpenAI model recently breached another company, open-weight access is under threat, and more than 1,000 lab staff have signed a letter urging a slower pace of development.
He would not back a slowdown. "You have to build responsibility into whatever pace you're going at," he said.
Hiring an enterprise-sales veteran signals Scale's shift from AI infrastructure to the enterprise layer that still struggles to deploy AI. deSouza's job is to make the second act bigger than the first.
Read more: The Next Web · PR Newswire
Image credit: Scale AI
In this story
Go deeper
More top stories
Track every deal behind the headlines.
Company financials, cap tables and investor track records — live on Dealroom.