Cerebras Systems Inc. and Glean Technologies Inc., a pair of prominent startups in the generative artificial intelligence space, have enlisted new human legal executives as they expand operations.
Glean, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company founded in 2019 by former Google engineers that’s reportedly nearing a $2 billion valuation, this month recruited former aiXplain Inc. general counsel Victor Huang. A Glean spokeswoman said that Huang started Dec. 4 as its first head of legal.
Cerebras, a chipmaker specializing in artificial intelligence processors, confirmed it hired Shirley Li this month as general counsel. Li is a former Goodwin Procter associate who most recently was chief legal and people officer for Snapdocs Inc., a real estate and mortgage technology startup. She takes over a role vacated earlier this year by Rebecca Boyden, the company’s first general counsel.
Cerebras, founded in 2016 and valued two years ago at more than $4 billion, made waves this year by announcing it built the first of nine artificial intelligence supercomputers in partnership with the emirate of Abu Dhabi. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company is battling for a share of the competitive artificial intelligence hardware market with Nvidia Corp., a growing industry giant.
Fenwick & West advised Cerebras on its most recent Series F fundraising in late 2021. Fenwick has also handled trademark work for Cerebras, per public filings.
Glean said Huang began working for it in a part-time capacity in May. Huang previously spent more than a decade in-house at technology companies Rubrik Inc., Nutanix Inc., Illumina Inc., eBay Inc., and Dell EMC.
Huang is an expert on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and software legal issues, including “the interplay between copyright, patents, datasets, and machine learning models,” the company said.
Goodwin advised Glean on a Series C financing last year valuing it at $1 billion.
More AI Legal Hires
OpenAI, whose top lawyers recently stood behind the ChatGPT parent company’s embattled CEO Sam Altman, has been busy in recent months recruiting lawyers from Big Tech as the startup faces various corporate governance, legal, and public policy and regulatory issues.
In November, OpenAI added Google senior privacy counsel Cary Bassin—a former lawyer in the Justice Department’s national security division—as senior counsel for artificial intelligence privacy and governance.
That same month Replit Inc., a startup software development platform that struck a partnership with Google this year to use artificial intelligence to complete code, promoted associate general counsel Robert Kohse to head of legal and corporate secretary. Kohse succeeded Cecilia Ziniti, Replit’s former legal chief and head of business development.
Lastly, Grafana Labs, a software maker valued at $5 billion that’s recently made a push into artificial intelligence, hired longtime former SurveyMonkey legal chief Lora Blum for the same role. A Grafana spokeswoman confirmed Blum was brought on Nov. 28 to oversee an in-house legal team that includes roughly a half-dozen lawyers and one senior legal operations manager.
Grafana, whose clients include Bloomberg Law parent Bloomberg LP, has turned to Cooley for outside counsel on its fundraising efforts. Seattle-based Stokes Lawrence has handled trademark matters for the company.
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