After Meta successfully poached several senior researchers, an OpenAI executive assured team members on Saturday that the company’s leadership has not “been standing idly by.”
“I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something,” Chief Research Officer Mark Chen wrote in a Slack memo obtained by Wired.
Several press reports surfaced last week indicating that eight researchers left OpenAI for Meta. Altman even complained on a podcast that Meta was providing “$ 100 million signing bonuses,” a claim that Meta executives have disputed internally.
In response to Meta’s poaching attempts, Chen stated that he, CEO Sam Altman and other OpenAI leaders have been working around the clock to talk to those with offers and that they have been more proactive than ever before we’re recalibrating comp and we’re scoping out creative ways to recognise and reward top talent.
Meta Poaching
Last week The Wall Street Journal reported that Meta had “poached” three OpenAI researchers to join its mission to develop superintelligent systems.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta hired Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov and Xiaohua Zhai, who were responsible for establishing OpenAI’s office in Zurich, Switzerland last year.
If accurate, this move represents another step by Meta to strengthen its internal talent pool as it aims to keep pace with competitors.
Meta recently invested $ 14.3 billion for a 49 % stake in Scale AI, an AI start-up that assists businesses in creating their own AI models. Alexandr Wang, the CEO of Scale AI, has stepped down and will now lead Meta’s new “superintelligence” unit.
Meta, led by Mark Zuckerberg, reportedly attempted to acquire Safe Superintelligence (SSI), an AI start-up co‑founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, valued at approximately $ 32 billion during its funding round. The acquisition offer was rejected.
Meta is now focusing on recruiting SSI co‑founder and CEO Daniel Gross and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman to strengthen its new superintelligence lab, led by Alexandr Wang.
Altman Allegations
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has alleged that Meta Platforms Inc offered signing incentives of up to $ 100 million to lure top talent from OpenAI, a move he called “crazy” and reflective of intensifying rivalry within the AI industry.
On a podcast with his brother Jack Altman, he said, “They’ve started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team. I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that.”
Altman credited OpenAI’s robust culture and mission‑driven focus for retaining his team, stating that employees believe OpenAI has a stronger chance of achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI), thereby increasing its value. He criticised Meta’s compensation‑first strategy, arguing that it fails to foster a strong culture or support long‑term innovation.
