Who Is Daniel Gross, Co-Leader of Meta Compute?

Daniel Gross is an investor and software entrepreneur who co-leads Meta Platforms' Meta Compute infrastructure initiative alongside Santosh Janardhan as of October 2026.

Gross previously co-founded Safe Superintelligence (SSI) with Ilya Sutskever and Daniel Levy before stepping down in June 2025 to join Meta.

Before SSI, Gross founded Greplin (later renamed Cue), led machine learning work at Apple, and was a partner at Y Combinator (YC). He and Nat Friedman also invested in artificial intelligence (AI) startups through their fund, NFDG.

Where Daniel Gross Is Now

Daniel Gross co-leads Meta Compute, a top-level artificial intelligence infrastructure initiative at Meta Platforms, alongside Santosh Janardhan. Mark Zuckerberg announced the establishment of the initiative on Threads on January 12, 2026. On his personal website, Gross states that he runs compute for Meta.

Gross leads a group responsible for long-term capacity strategy, supplier partnerships, industry analysis, planning, and business modeling, according to TechCrunch. As reported by SiliconANGLE, his organization oversees the supply chain for silicon chips, servers, and networking hardware. The group also handles supplier relationships and new business models "at multi-gigawatt scale."

Gross joined Meta in mid-2025 amid initial reports that he would work on AI products under Alexandr Wang.

• Current role: Co-leader of Meta Compute alongside Santosh Janardhan.
• Organization: Meta Platforms.
• Known for: Co-founding Cue and Safe Superintelligence, leading machine learning at Apple, and investing through NFDG.
• Early career: Entered Y Combinator in the Winter 2010 batch at age 18.
• In the news for: Co-leading Meta Compute, announced January 12, 2026, which handles Meta's long-term capacity planning and chip supply chain.

Departure from Safe Superintelligence and Move to Meta

Gross co-founded Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI) in June 2024 and left SSI on June 29, 2025, to join Meta. On June 19, 2024, Ilya Sutskever, Daniel Gross, and Daniel Levy announced SSI, as reported by TechCrunch. SSI has offices in Palo Alto and Tel Aviv, and its website calls it "the world's first straight-shot SSI lab."

Gross served as co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of SSI. On September 4, 2024, SSI announced on its updates page that it raised $1 billion from investors including NFDG, Andreessen Horowitz, and Sequoia Capital. CNBC reported that an April 2025 funding round valued SSI at $32 billion.

CNBC reported that Meta tried to acquire SSI earlier in 2025, and that Sutskever turned down both the deal and an offer to join Meta. Mark Zuckerberg then held discussions with Gross, planning to hire him alongside Nat Friedman to work on products under Alexandr Wang. The Information first reported the hiring plans, and CNBC reported them on June 19, 2025.

In a company note on July 3, 2025, Sutskever stated that Gross was officially no longer a part of SSI as of June 29, 2025. Sutskever became CEO and Levy became president. SSI said it was flattered by acquisition interest but focused on its work. According to Calcalist, Gross called SSI's future "very bright."

Mark Zuckerberg announced the formation of Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) in an internal memo on June 30, 2025. While Gross was not named in the memo published by CNBC, SiliconANGLE reported that he joined MSL.

Founding of Greplin and Acquisition by Apple

Gross began his career in technology by founding the search company Greplin. Greplin was a personal search engine designed to index cloud accounts such as Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, and LinkedIn. As reported by Michael Arrington in TechCrunch on August 31, 2010, Gross founded Greplin at 18.

Gross entered the Winter 2010 batch of Y Combinator alongside co-founder Robby Walker. TechCrunch reported in August 2010 that Gross was the youngest entrepreneur YC had funded to date. In a March 2011 interview with The Next Web, Gross noted that YC had subsequently backed an even younger founder.

Greplin raised a seed round exceeding $700,000 from angel investors, including SV Angel, Chris Dixon, Bret Taylor, Keith Rabois, and Paul Buchheit. In 2012, Greplin rebranded as Cue, shifting its focus toward personal assistant functionality, according to Wikipedia. Cue secured an unannounced $10 million investment round from Index Ventures in November 2012.

TechCrunch reported on October 3, 2013, that Apple had acquired Cue for a reported $40 million to $60 million. Apple did not confirm the deal, saying only that it buys smaller technology companies from time to time.

Machine Learning Leadership at Apple

At Apple, Gross served as a director focused on machine learning from 2013 to 2017. Gross spent three years in Cupertino as reported by TechCrunch. His group integrated machine learning capabilities into iOS and OS X software.

His work included pulling contact details out of emails into the Contacts app, according to the same TechCrunch report.

On his personal website, Gross notes that he led artificial intelligence and search projects at Apple from 2013 to 2017.

Partnership at Y Combinator and Creation of Pioneer

Y Combinator announced Gross as a new partner on January 10, 2017. In an interview with TechCrunch, Gross explained that he wanted to contribute to the institution that gave him his career. YC announced his appointment alongside several new partners in a blog post.

In March 2017, Gross launched YC's first specialized vertical program dedicated exclusively to AI startups, as reported by TechCrunch. The track provided founders with dedicated office hours, graphics processing unit (GPU) cloud credits, and direct mentorship from Gross. Gross also issued an application request for startups building AI for robot factories.

In 2018, Gross co-founded Pioneer with Rishi Narang as a startup accelerator for ambitious outsiders. Backed by Stripe and Marc Andreessen, Pioneer says it has funded more than 150 companies and 300 founders in more than 50 countries. According to its website, Pioneer stopped making new investments in 2024.

Venture Investments with Nat Friedman and the Andromeda Cluster

Gross's website describes him as an early-stage venture investor, often with Nat Friedman. The pair invested through a fund named NFDG. TIME named Gross to the TIME100 AI list in September 2023. TIME says he has backed Uber, Instacart, and Coinbase.

In 2023, Gross and Friedman assembled the Andromeda supercomputer cluster to support AI startups. As reported by TIME, the cluster weighed 7,255 pounds and cost approximately $100 million, including power and cooling infrastructure. Gross and Friedman traded access to the cluster for equity stakes in early-stage artificial intelligence companies.

Today, andromeda.ai is run by Andromeda Cluster, Inc., a marketplace that matches AI teams with compute providers. The current website does not list Gross or Friedman as operators.

According to a Dow Jones report published by Tiger Brokers in July 2025, NFDG raised approximately $1.1 billion for its initial fund in 2023. The fund deployed roughly half of its capital, with investments reportedly increasing in value by four times. Portfolio companies named in the report include Safe Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Granola, and Basis.

The Dow Jones report stated that NFDG stopped making new investments in mid-2025 and released limited partners from a planned $1.5 billion second fund. Meta offered a tender to buy up to 49% of NFDG limited partner holdings at net asset value, per reports from SiliconANGLE and Dow Jones. The tender terms provided Meta with no governance rights or company information, and sources did not report whether the transaction closed.

Public Record and Name Disambiguation

The entrepreneur Daniel Gross is distinct from journalist Daniel Gross, crisis communications executive Dan Gross, and activist Dan Gross, according to Wikipedia.

Daniel Gross's net worth is not reliably published. Other figures in AI leadership are profiled in AI people to watch.