Amazon AGI Lab Head Defends Reverse Acquihire, Cites Need for Massive Resources to Achieve AGI

When Amazon hired the founders of AI startup Adept last year, it marked one of the earliest high-profile examples of a reverse acquihire—a strategy where a large company brings on key startup talent and licenses the company’s technology without acquiring the business itself. Adept’s co-founder and former CEO, David Luan, was named head of Amazon’s newly formed AGI Lab. In a recent interview with The Verge, reporter Alex Heath asked Luan about the growing trend of reverse acquihires in the AI industry. Luan responded by expressing his desire to be remembered as an AI research innovator rather than a pioneer of deal structures. However, he acknowledged that the approach makes sense for big tech firms aiming to rapidly scale their AI ambitions. “It’s perfectly rational,” Luan said, “for companies like Amazon to put together critical mass on both talent and compute right now.” He emphasized that building advanced artificial general intelligence (AGI) requires massive resources—both in human expertise and computational power. Luan explained that he wasn’t interested in transforming Adept into an enterprise-focused company that only sells smaller, limited models. His goal, he said, was to tackle the four fundamental research challenges that remain before achieving AGI. “Every single one of them is going to require two-digit billion-dollar clusters to run,” he noted. “How else am I going to have the opportunity to go do that?” For Luan, joining Amazon wasn’t just about access to infrastructure—it was about aligning with a company capable of supporting the scale of research needed to push the boundaries of AI. His move reflects a broader shift in the AI landscape, where top talent is increasingly drawn to the resources of major tech firms to pursue ambitious, long-term goals.