tl;dr
Meta is reportedly offering OpenAI employees signing bonuses up to $100 million and annual compensation exceeding that, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Despite these offers, none of OpenAI's top talent have accepted them so far. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally involved in recruitment effo...
Meta is reportedly offering OpenAI employees signing bonuses of up to $100 million and annual compensation exceeding that amount to attract top AI talent. Despite these lucrative offers, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman states that none of his best employees have accepted Meta's proposals so far. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's CEO, is personally involved in recruitment, hosting meetings at private residences to woo candidates.
As part of its AI expansion, Meta invested $14 billion in the AI startup Scale AI and established a "superintelligence division" led by Scale AI’s founder, Alexandr Wang. The fierce competition for AI talent is driving compensation packages sky-high, with Anthropic leading in employee retention among elite AI labs, boasting an 80% retention rate over two years, compared to 78% at DeepMind and 67% at OpenAI.
Meta reportedly spends about $2 million annually per AI employee but continues to lose talent to competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic. DeepMind is experiencing notable talent attrition, while smaller companies such as Hugging Face successfully attract researchers away from major firms. Some startups offer extraordinary retention packages, including $2 million bonuses and equity awards exceeding $20 million, often conditioned on one-year commitments.
These aggressive compensation strategies have caught the attention of U.S. lawmakers, sparking scrutiny over the implications of such massive incentives in the AI talent market. As the race for AI supremacy intensifies, major players are reshaping the industry landscape through unprecedented investment and fierce talent recruitment to gain a strategic edge.