Ofer Shacham, ex-Head of Silicon at Meta and Google leader, now co-founded Majestic Labs. His goal: energy-efficient AI chips to rival Nvidia's dominance.
In 2018, Google co-founder Sergey Brin offered Shacham a blank check for his next project. Just 10km away, Mark Zuckerberg lured him to Facebook with a bolder challenge.
Shacham chose Meta to pioneer AR silicon for smart glasses. The mission: "All-day wearable, socially acceptable"—lightweight, stylish, and safe.
This meant shrinking server-grade hardware into glasses under 80 grams. Batteries and chips couldn't overheat or weigh down users' ears.
Over five years, Shacham built a 1,000-person team in Israel. With hundreds of millions in funding, they shipped 15 chips for AI-powered AR.
Meta's glasses didn't conquer the market, but Shacham entered the AI silicon race. Post-departure, Meta shuttered the Israel unit, laying off most staff.
Both Brin and Zuckerberg fought to keep him. Zuckerberg even relocated Shacham's VP role to Israel amid pandemic return.
Zuckerberg impressed with coder-level smarts—spotting footnotes in dense docs. Brin shone in emotional intelligence, casually lunching with engineers.
Shacham, 48, returned his family to Hod Hasharon, Israel. Kids adjusted to noisy classrooms and "Israeli roughness," prepping them for life.
Exhausted by odd-hour work, Shacham eyed AI's rise. Majestic Labs is his play to disrupt Nvidia with efficient processors.
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