Mark Zuckerberg’s million-dollar hires are under pressure to deliver after Llama 4’s ‘botched launch’

Mark Zuckerberg’s multi-million-dollar elite AI team is facing a major test, as the newly-hired engineers and leaders are under intense pressure to deliver competitive products. The company is said to be working on Avocado – new Llama successor and frontier AI model – which is being developed inside TBD lab. Reportedly, the pressure has intensified following the ‘botched’ launch of Meta’s Llama 4 AI model, which was hit by reports of underwhelming real-world performance, poor coding ability and allegations of rigged benchmark scores.

CNBC recently reported that Alexandr Wang, chief AI officer of Meta AI, is facing the heat.