Fireworks hires former Meta executive Dave Wehner as CFO
Dave Wehner, a former Meta chief financial officer, has joined Fireworks, an AI inference startup, as its new CFO. The company is valued at $17.5 billion.
Wehner announced his departure from Meta on X, marking the end of a decade-long tenure at the social media giant. He will now lead the financial operations of Fireworks, a startup founded in 2022 by former Meta engineers.
The hiring is a significant bet on the startup's future. Wehner, who previously served as Meta's CFO from 2014 to 2022, is leaving a senior strategy role to oversee the finances of a company that did not exist until 2022.
Fireworks focuses on AI inference, the process of serving trained AI models to customers. The company processes more than 40 trillion tokens daily, a volume that underscores the immense scale of its operations.
The company's scale and ambition
Fireworks trains and serves open-source AI models for enterprise clients. Its business model allows companies like Uber, Shopify, and Doximity to customize these models with their own proprietary data.
The startup's financial growth has been rapid. In July 2026, it raised $1.505 billion in a Series D round, valuing the company at $17.5 billion on a post-money basis. By mid-2026, it had already achieved a $1 billion annualized revenue run rate.
This revenue growth, from $100 million in annualized revenue in approximately 16 months, explains the need for a heavyweight financial leader. Wehner's mandate is to scale the startup's finances and operations.
Wehner will be responsible for scaling the startup’s finances and operations.
A reunion and a signal
The hire has a reunion quality. Fireworks was founded by former Meta engineers, and CEO Lin Qiao previously led Meta's PyTorch team, a widely used framework for developing machine learning models.
For the AI industry, Wehner's move is a signal about where executive talent sees opportunity. He left a senior post at one of the world's most valuable tech companies to join an inference startup, highlighting the growing importance of serving AI models.
For Meta, the departure removes a long-tenured executive with deep institutional knowledge. While the company has not lost a sitting CFO, as Wehner had already moved into the strategy role, it does lose a figure who helped steer its finances through a major chapter of growth.
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