How a 24-year-old Stanford Ph.D. dropout lured some of Meta's brightest minds to join her AI math startup

In a stunning move, Carina Hong, a 24-year-old Stanford dropout, has successfully attracted some of the brightest minds from Meta to join her ambitious startup, Axiom Math. This company, which aims to develop an AI mathematician, was founded by Hong in March after her departure from graduate studies. Recently, Axiom announced a significant achievement: it solved two long-standing Erdos math problems that had puzzled mathematicians for decades. Moreover, the startup secured a $64 million seed funding round in September. Axiom Math is rapidly growing, currently employing 17 individuals, many of whom previously worked at Meta's esteemed Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) lab, as well as the GenAI team and Google Brain, which merged into DeepMind in 2023. The company's goal is to address complex mathematical challenges, a field that AI experts deem crucial for the pursuit of superintelligence. Hong believes that this mission has played a pivotal role in attracting top talent from major tech firms. Hong shared her insights with Business Insider, stating, "One thing I heard from some of the top researchers and mathematicians I've recruited to Axiom is that solving for mathematical superintelligence will be their legacy. When the problem is hard enough, talent density gets very high, and that makes you a magnet for other great thinkers." While recruiting, Hong specifically targeted the FAIR team, which has a reputation for delivering outstanding research work. This strategy comes in light of Meta's recent layoffs in their AI department and the departure of chief scientist Yann LeCun, who left to pursue his own AI venture. Among Axiom's notable recruits is Shubho Sengupta, the first team member and current CTO, whom Hong fortuitously met at a coffee shop. Other key hires include Francois Charton, Aram Markosyan, and Hugh Leather. Despite Meta's substantial retention packages during her recruitment phase, Hong noted that she was not aware of specific competing offers. In a fiercely competitive job market, the long-term potential of Axiom played a significant role in enticing researchers to join her team. The excitement surrounding Axiom's mission has been palpable from day one, even when the office was minimally furnished with just a plastic folding table and a friend's couch. Hong is not solely focused on recruiting talent from Big Tech; she has also persuaded her former professor, renowned mathematician Ken Ono, to join her initiative. She views age and experience as social constructs, having worked alongside senior researchers throughout her academic career, and aims to foster a non-hierarchical culture within Axiom. Axiom's objectives extend beyond theoretical mathematics. Hong envisions commercial applications in various fields requiring provably correct reasoning, such as hardware and software verification, quantitative finance, and cryptography.