Meta has ended its four-month collaboration with Song Xiaodong's team, with an insider citing "work style misalignment" as the reason.

Flash News from Insight: Beating AI. According to a Semafor report, Meta is laying off a group of employees it hired in June this year from AI security startup Virtue AI, with their collaboration lasting just around four months. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Semafor that the staff were let go due to "work style misalignment", noting the partnership did not develop as expected. In June, Dawn Song, UC Berkeley computer professor and founder of Virtue AI, announced she would join Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, alongside Virtue AI co-founders Bo Li, Sanmi Koyejo, and other team members. The recruitment was framed as Meta bringing in an independent team, not acquiring the entire Virtue AI. Virtue AI specializes in AI security testing, red teaming, vulnerability discovery, as well as model runtime protection and governance. Meta’s earlier onboarding of the team was viewed as aligned with its push for AI agent and superintelligence strategies, as well as strengthening AI security and frontier risk governance. Semafor reports that Meta stated the Superintelligence Labs will continue to focus on AI security, alignment, and frontier risks. However, Meta did not disclose specific disagreements between the two parties, nor has it confirmed whether core Virtue AI members like Dawn Song have all left Meta. As of the report’s publication, Virtue AI had not yet responded. The report adds that the rapid shift in this partnership has once again sparked external discussion on the "organizational mismatch" issue when top research teams join large tech firms—referring to potential conflicts between the autonomy, flexibility, and high decision-making efficiency startup teams are accustomed to, and the organizational processes and corporate culture of big tech companies.