Mark Zuckerberg reportedly spent months putting together a list of the top AI engineers and researchers across the globe, preparing to offer potential recruits lucrative compensation packages in Meta’s attempt to poach AI talent from key competitors.
Silicon Valley has been talking for weeks about the Meta CEO’s quest to attract top AI talent, including by offering pay packages worth up to $100m.
Zuckerberg has personally reached out to desired candidates, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has been competing in the search for AI dominance with rivals like OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Amazon, which have invested billions of dollars into AI research and product development. Last month, questions were raised about the direction of Meta’s AI development after it delayed the scheduled rollout of Behemoth, its flagship AI model.
Earlier this month, Meta paid $14bn for a stake in Scale AI and is putting its founder, 28-year-old Alexandr Wang, in charge of its “superintelligence team” – an internal lab that would focus on Meta’s efforts to develop a hypothetical AI system that is smarter than humans.
Last year, Google bought out the shareholders in Character.AI, a chatbot service that allows users to have personal conversations with different AI personas, for $2.7bn.
People on “the list”, as Zuckerberg’s slate is known around Silicon Valley, include recent graduates from top PhD programs at schools like the University of California at Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon. Many are currently employed by Meta’s AI competitors, including OpenAI and Google’s DeepMind project, and have traded notes with each other on Meta’s recruiting efforts.
A recruit who has personally spoken to Zuckerberg said that his goal appears to be a “transfusion from the country’s top AI labs”. A WhatsApp group chat called “Recruiting Party” was formed for Zuckerberg and at least two other senior Meta executives to talk through potential hires. The Meta CEO has been trying to personally find candidates by looking through research papers, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Zuckerberg’s hands-on recruiting efforts have drawn the ire of OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, who called the rumored signing bonuses and compensation packages on offer “crazy”.
“I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that,” Altman said during an appearance on the Uncapped podcast, which is hosted by his brother Jack. “I think the strategy of a ton of upfront, guaranteed comp, and that being the reason you tell someone to join, like really the degree to which they’re focusing on that and not the work and not the mission, I don’t think that’s going to set up a great culture.”