Meta's $100M Talent Poaching Attempts Fail to Lure OpenAI's Top Researchers

Sam Altman says Meta tried and failed to poach OpenAI's talent with $100M offers

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on something of a hiring spree lately, trying to staff up Meta's new superintelligence team with top-tier AI researchers from competing labs. To work on a team led by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and at a desk physically near Zuckerberg, Meta has reportedly offered employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind compensation packages worth upwards of $100 million. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed those reports on a podcast with his brother, Jack Altman, which was published on Tuesday. However, the OpenAI CEO noted that Zuckerberg's recruiting efforts have been largely unsuccessful and made sure to throw a few more digs at Meta in the process. "[Meta has] started making these, like, giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Sam Altman said on the podcast. "You know, like, $100 million signing bonuses, more than that [in] compensation per year [...] I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on that." The OpenAI CEO said he believed his employees made the assessment that OpenAI had a better chance of achieving AGI and may one day be the more valuable company. He also said he believes Meta's focus on high compensation packages for employees, rather than the mission of delivering AGI, would likely not create a great culture. Meta reportedly tried to poach one of OpenAI's lead researchers, Noam Brown, as well as Google's AI architect, Koray Kavukcuoglu. However, both efforts were unsuccessful. Sam Altman went on to say he believes OpenAI's culture of innovation has been a major key to its success, and that Meta's "current AI efforts have not worked as well as they hoped." The OpenAI CEO said he respects many things about Meta but noted he doesn't "think they're a company that's great at innovation." Later in the podcast, Altman said he believes it's not enough for companies to catch up on AI -- they have to truly innovate to stay ahead. The OpenAI CEO's comments highlight some of the challenges that Meta has to overcome in order to build out a successful AI superintelligence lab. Besides bringing on Wang, Meta announced last week that it invested significantly in Wang's former company, Scale AI. The company has also reportedly nabbed a few star AI researchers, such as Google DeepMind's Jack Rae and Sesame AI's Johan Schalkwyk. But there's more work ahead. In the coming year, Meta will have to staff up its new AI team while OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind operate at full speed. In the coming months, OpenAI is expected to release an open AI model that's likely to set Meta back in the AI race even further. Later on in the podcast, Sam Altman described an AI-powered social media feed that seems likely to encroach on Meta's apps. The OpenAI CEO said he's curious about exploring a social media app that uses AI to deliver custom feeds based on what users want, rather than the default, algorithmic feed that exists on traditional social media apps. OpenAI is reportedly working on a social networking app internally. Meanwhile, Meta is experimenting with an AI-powered social network through its Meta AI app. However, it seems that some users are confused by the Meta AI app and have shared some hyperpersonal chats with the broader world. Whether AI-powered social networks take off remains to be seen. In the meantime, Zuckerberg and Sam Altman seem poised to butt heads over the AI talent race.

Sam Altman says Meta is offering obscene $100M bonuses to poach AI employees and even bigger salaries -- OpenAI CEO says 'none of our best people decided to take them up on that'

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that Meta has been attempting to lure its staff to work at its AI division with absolutely outrageous compensation. He claimed during a YouTube interview at Uncapped with Jack Altman, who is his brother, that the social media giant is offering $100M signing bonuses to some senior technical people, with even greater annual compensation. This shows how big a bet Meta has placed on AI, and how much it is willing to pour into the project to get a leg up on the competition. The brothers were talking about Meta's recent acquisition of Scale AI, which happened about a week ago. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor, and it is rational for them to keep trying. Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they've hoped, and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things," Sam said when asked about Meta's move. "They started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that comp per year. I'm really happy that, at least so far, that none of our best people have decided to take them up on that. I think that people sort of look at the two paths and say, 'Alright, OpenAI's got a really good shot -- a much better shot, actually -- delivering on [AI] superintelligence and also may eventually be the more valuable company." As many companies have continued investing billions of dollars in AI hardware over the past few years, they have probably realized that they need equally expensive talent to run them. There have been previous reports that Meta has been losing AI staff despite paying them $2 million annually, with many jumping ship to its rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic. If Altman's claims are correct, it may be that Meta has noticed this and has decided to up the ante and pay so much more for senior AI engineers to join its effort. Sam criticized Meta, saying that the degree it focuses on the compensation -- not the work or the mission -- will not set up a great culture. Because of this, he says people would rather stay at OpenAI, despite the massive amounts of money that Meta is throwing towards its people. "I hope that we can be the best place in the world to do this kind of research. I think we build a special culture for it, and I think that we're set up suck that if we succeed at that, and a lot of people on research team believe we will or we have a good chance at it, then everybody will do great, financially," said Altman. "I think it's incentive aligned with mission first, and then economic rewards, and everything else flowing from that." OpenAI's people not jumping ship to Meta despite the massive packages it offers makes sense, though. After all, if you're already making more than enough to support your lifestyle and then some, you really don't need the extra money in exchange for the risk you're taking by moving to a different company, especially one that seemingly lags what your current organization has already achieved. Besides, OpenAI and its people are confident that it will be among the first ones, if not the first one, to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI), and then AI superintelligence (ASI), which could make it and its people a lot of money -- so much more than what Meta can offer. However, Anthropic CEO Darius Amodei has an opposing view about AI development -- if the government and society are unprepared, its widespread use can cause unemployment rates to jump to 20% and wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs.

Mark Zuckerberg To OpenAI Researchers: Join Me For $100 Million?

Want to work on AI at Meta? Mark Zuckerberg might pay you up to $100 million if you're a top researcher in the field. The Facebook founder has been dangling the lucrative deals to try and poach employees at OpenAI, according to the company's CEO Sam Altman. "They started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team, you know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that comp (compensation) per year," Altman told his brother, Jack Altman, on a Tuesday podcast. The statement confirms earlier reporting from The New York Times, which found that Meta is offering "seven- to nine-figure compensation packages to dozens of researchers" at the top AI companies including Google. This comes as Meta partially acquired Scale AI, poaching its founder Alexandr Wang. Mark Zuckerberg's goal is to create a new lab dedicated to developing superintelligent AI when Meta has already been spending billions on the GPU hardware for AI training. But it looks like the massive compensation deals haven't been enough to lure the top staffers at OpenAI. "I'm really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take him up on that," Altman said in the podcast. Altman also took some digs at Zuckerberg, saying OpenAI has "a much better shot" at delivering AI super intelligence, while having the potential to exceed Meta's corporate value. In addition, Altman said Zuckerberg's focus on offering a high compensation to poach staff was flawed. "I don't think that's going to set up a great culture. And I hope we can be the best place in the world to do this research," Altman added, later saying: "I think its incentive aligned, with mission first, and then economic rewards and everything else flowing from that." Not everyone will agree considering OpenAI's board famously fired Altman as CEO only to hire him back amid an internal struggle for leadership control. Other OpenAI executives and researchers have since resigned either to focus on their own startups or because the company allegedly ignored commitments to safety. Still, Altman said during the podcast he's confident that OpenAI has the foundation to create other hit AI products, following the success of ChatGPT. "There's many things I respect about Meta as a company," Altman added. "But I don't think they're a company that's great at innovation. The special thing about OpenAI is we've managed to build a culture that is good at repeatable innovation." Meta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sam Altman Says Meta Offered OpenAI Staffers $100 Million Bonuses

OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said Meta Platforms Inc. has offered his employees signing bonuses as high as $100 million, with even larger annual compensation packages, as it seeks to build a top artificial intelligence team. "It is crazy," Altman said on the podcast Uncapped, which is hosted by his brother. While Meta has sought to hire "a lot of people" at OpenAI, "so far none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," Altman added. Bloomberg's Charlie Wells joined Tom Mackenzie on Daybreak Europe to report on what this means for Meta's AI talent search. (Source: Bloomberg)

OpenAI says Meta is trying to poach staff with $100mn sign-on offers

OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman has accused Mark Zuckerberg's Meta of trying to poach his developers with the promise of $100mn sign-on bonuses and even higher compensation, as the social media platform races to catch up in the AI battle. Altman said Meta, which has a market capitalisation of $1.8tn, had begun to make the "giant offers" to employees on his team after falling behind on their current AI push. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Altman said on the Uncapped podcast, which is hosted by his brother. "I think it is rational for them to keep trying. Their current AI efforts haven't worked as well as they've hoped and I respect [them] continuing to be aggressive." He added that none of his "best people" had taken Zuckerberg up on his offers. Meta has been racing to poach top researchers and engineers from rival groups as it seeks to build a new "superintelligence" team to develop artificial general intelligence. Zuckerberg, the chief executive, has been personally selecting and calling talent as part of the superintelligence push, according to one person familiar with the matter and as first reported by Bloomberg. Last week, Meta announced a $15bn investment in data-labelling start-up Scale AI and also hired its co-founder Alexandr Wang. Despite Zuckerberg repeatedly declaring his intention for the company to become an "AI leader", Meta has struggled this year to keep pace with its rivals, suffering several setbacks. Meta has faced claims that it boosted performance metrics for Llama 4, the latest release of its large language model, and has been subjected to online criticism for not releasing a full technical report to accompany the model. In a post on X in April, Ahmad Al-Dahle, Meta's head of GenAI, apologised for the "mixed quality" users were experiencing, but denied claims that its performance tests did not follow convention. It has also delayed the release of its flagship AI model called "Behemoth", and was caught off-guard by rapid advancements in the field by smaller Chinese rival, DeepSeek, made at a fraction of the cost. Meta has also recently experienced an exodus of AI talent, with several key researchers who built the Llama models leaving over the past few months, as well as Joelle Pineau, head of AI research. Zuckerberg has been reshuffling its generative AI leadership in a bid to catch up. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Altman said that the strategy of "a ton of upfront guaranteed comp" was a poor one, criticising "the degree to which they are focusing on that and not the work and not the mission". He added: ''I don't think they're a company that's great at innovation." Salaries for a software engineer at OpenAI range from around $238,000 to $1.34mn, according to financial package tracking website Levels, while Meta's salaries varied from $212,000 to around $3.7mn.

Sam Altman says Meta offered $100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees

June 17 (Reuters) - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that Meta (META.O), opens new tab has offered his employees bonuses of $100 million to recruit them, as the tech giant seeks to ramp up its artificial intelligence strategy. The alleged attempts by Meta to hire OpenAI staffers are the latest signs of a frenzy to hire top engineers to develop AI models, and they come at a time when the Facebook owner is working on building its superintelligence unit to catch up with competitors. Competition for AI talent has reached a feverish pitch as superstar researchers are being courted like professional athletes on the belief that individual contributors can make or break companies. "They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said on the Uncapped podcast that aired on Tuesday, hosted by his brother. "You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year." "At least, so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," Altman said. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours, and Reuters could not verify the information. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Altman said. His comments come just days after Meta invested $14.3 billion in data-labeling startup Scale AI, and hired its top boss, Alexandr Wang, to lead its new superintelligence team. Meta, once recognized as a leader in open-source AI models, has suffered from staff departures and has postponed the launches of new open-source AI models that could rival competitors like Google, China's DeepSeek and OpenAI. Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

What's behind the AI talent gold rush?

The writer is former editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and writes Futurepolis, a newsletter on the future of democracy Even by Silicon Valley's historically rarefied standards, Big AI is spending stratospheric amounts on talent this year. Meta has invested $15bn in Scale AI, a data labelling start-up that claims just 900 employees. Scale's 28-year-old chief executive, Alexandr Wang, will take up a job at a new Meta lab devoted to creating AI "superintelligence". His cash and equity in the deal is reported to be worth some $5bn, making him one of the most expensive so-called "acqui-hires" on record. Meta is also reportedly offering $100mn sign-on bonuses to lure researchers from other artificial intelligence companies to its lab. OpenAI, meanwhile, has paid $6.4bn for io, the boutique design firm led by Apple's former top designer Jony Ive. And bidding wars from rivals keen to hire its top researchers have led it to pay up to $2mn in retention bonuses to employees whose existing packages already reach eight figures. What's behind this gold rush? It's not a shortage of talent, per se. The San Francisco Bay Area is awash with unemployed software engineers, a result of the industry shedding jobs after the pandemic and adopting AI coding tools. Rather, the eye-watering figures are a marker of how hard it is for the biggest AI companies to build an unassailable "moat", or competitive advantage. Their models jostle for the top spot in performance while scrappier, cheaper alternatives from rivals like China's DeepSeek nip at their heels. Data centres and the chips that fill them are a commodity, albeit a very expensive one. That leaves two areas in which companies can hope to steal a march: data and talent. Scale AI is both a talent and a data play. The company's main business is providing high-quality annotated data for training AI models. Now that the big AI companies have scraped most of the internet, Scale's labelling work can help them improve the quality of their models. Meta's Mark Zuckerberg must be desperate for his company to remain a serious player in AI after its most recent big model release, Llama 4, was underwhelming. But the war for talent is not just about output -- it's about perception. A start-up's ability to attract investors and a listed company's ability to keep its stock price up are both aided by the buzz generated by a few superstar minds. Relative to its projected revenue and the size of its team, Scale's is among the costliest major tech acquisitions ever. But it is not a one-off. In 2014, Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $21.8bn when the messaging company had just 55 people. Its founders, Brian Acton and Jan Koum, both joined Facebook as part of the deal. Still, the amounts on offer for AI are unusual. The source of all these dollars is threefold. The first is the relentless pursuit of profits by Big AI and chip companies, abetted by the US government's determination to maintain America's lead in AI over China. Second is the blistering pace of advances in AI tools, and the rush by other industries to sprinkle AI dust over everything for fear of falling behind. Many of these investments have not yet yielded productivity gains, but Fomo is a powerful force. The third factor is that Big AI, for better or worse, has locked itself into a race for artificial general intelligence, or AGI. This is the notional point at which AI reaches and then surpasses human capabilities. In reality, some of the world's most legendary AI experts, including Meta's own Yann LeCun, argue that large language models won't do the trick and that research into new approaches will be needed. AGI itself may be a mirage; definitions of it vary widely, and it may well be that what the future holds is not humanlike AI but many different, highly capable, more specialised kinds. This is why this race for talent requires more than just cash. Culture and mission matter, too. Anthropic and Safe Superintelligence, both created by former OpenAI employees, put emphasis on creating "safe" AI, for example. Anthropic, which is reported to give its researchers more autonomy, does well at retention. OpenAI, on the other hand, has lost many of its best people in recent years after rifts with the top leadership. At Meta, researchers have cited its neglect of blue-sky research among their reasons for leaving. This year, it lost Joelle Pineau, the head of Fair, its prestigious AI research lab. These talent wars show no sign of slowing down. The chieftains of AI have staked their reputations on being the first to AGI. As long as greed, fear and the dream of superintelligence are maintained, vast riches for top talent will keep on flowing.

Sam Altman says Meta offered OpenAI staff $100 million bonuses, as Mark Zuckerberg ramps AI poaching efforts

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the Snowflake Summit in San Francisco on June 2, 2025. Meta Platforms tried to poach OpenAI employees by offering signing bonuses as high as $100 million, with even larger annual compensation packages, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said. While Meta had sought to hire "a lot of people" from OpenAI, "so far none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," Altman said, speaking on the "Uncapped" podcast, which is hosted by his brother. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," he said. "Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things." Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNBC. The Meta CEO is personally trying to assemble a top artificial intelligence team for its "superintelligence" AI lab and has invested heavily in AI through its Meta AI research division, which also oversees its Llama series of open-source large language models. The moves come after Meta had once again delayed the release of its latest flagship AI model due to concerns about its capabilities, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, sources have previously told CNBC that Zuckerberg has become so frustrated with Meta's standing in AI that he's willing to invest billions in top talent. Last week Alexandr Wang, founder of Scale AI, announced he was leaving for Meta as part of a deal that saw the Facebook parent dish out $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in the AI startup. Wang added that a small number of Scale AI employees would also join Meta as part of the agreement.

Meta CTO Bosworth says OpenAI countered lucrative job offers to AI startup's employees

Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer of Meta Platforms Inc., speaks during a Bloomberg Television interview on the sidelines of the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, US, on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2024. Meta Platforms Inc. debuted its first pair of augmented reality glasses - devices that show a combined view of the digital and physical worlds, a key step in Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg's goal of one day offering a hands-free alternative to the smartphone. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast this week that Meta has dangled $100 million signing bonuses in front of the startup's employees, but that his company's best people have opted to stay. According to Meta technology chief Andrew Bosworth, OpenAI countered Meta's offers. "The market is setting a rate here for a level of talent which is really incredible and kind of unprecedented in my 20-year career as a technology executive," Bosworth, who joined Meta in 2006 and has been CTO since 2022, told CNBC's "Closing Bell Overtime" on Friday. The AI hiring war heated up dramatically last week, when Alexandr Wang, co-founder of Scale AI, said he will join Meta to work on superintelligence, a term for technology that exceeds human capability. Meta will invest over $14 billion in Scale AI in exchange for a 49% stake, in a deal that was targeted at luring Wang and a few of his top staffers. On Thursday, CNBC reported that Meta had sought to buy former OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever's new startup Safe Superintelligence but is now hiring its CEO, Daniel Gross, and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. The two have a position in Safe Superintelligence through their venture firm NFDG. And earlier on Friday, CNBC confirmed that Meta reached out to startup Perplexity AI about a possible acquisition, but the deal never materialized. "We really believe in a future where a superintelligent AI is going to be helping humans at every step of the way," Bosworth said. "Wherever they could use an extra helping hand, it's there for them. And so we've been lucky to have this kind of team rally around, both external now and increasingly internal, with people like Alex Wang, this idea of superintelligence and doing what it takes to pursue that vision." In the first quarter, Meta's capital expenditures and principal payments on finance leases approached $14 billion. "Now," Bosworth said, "we're meeting that investment in personnel, and the compute and the people together are what makes it happen." Altman said on this week's podcast, hosted by his brother, that Meta had promised the bonuses on top of more than $100 million in annual compensation. OpenAI didn't respond to a request for comment. Earlier this month OpenAI said it had reached $10 billion in annualized revenue, but the company continues to rack up hefty losses.

OpenAI boss: Meta offering $100m plus to poach my staff

However Mr Altman said "at least so far" none of his "best people" had been persuaded to jump ship. Speaking on his brother Jack's podcast, Sam Altman said he respected Meta's aggression in competing with OpenAI, which makes the world's best known AI-powered product, ChatGPT. He said in addition to the signing bonuses, Meta was offering more than that in "compensation per year", though did not spell out whether that was in wages or stock options and other incentives. But Mr Altman said he thought people were staying at OpenAI because of its "mission" of creating superintelligence and the "economic awards and everything else flowing from that". OpenAI and other AI firms think artificial general intelligence (AGI) is not far off, which would mean AI systems can perform as well as - or better than - humans. Superintelligence is the next step, where the aim is to create AI which can vastly outperform human cognitive abilities. Big tech firms are spending vast amounts of money pursing these goals. For example, in January OpenAI announced a joint deal with other funders to spend $500bn on a number of new data centres - which power AI - in the US. Unsurprisingly, Mr Altman said he thinks OpenAI has "a much better shot at actually delivering on superintelligence, and also may eventually be the more valuable company." He said it is "a really special culture" at OpenAI which attracts engineers to the company, especially when it comes to innovation. "There's many things I respect about Meta as a company, but I don't think they're a company that's, like, great at innovation," he told his brother. Though he called Meta's pursuit of superintelligence "rational," he compared it to Google's failed attempt at setting up a social media platform to rival Facebook.

Meta is offering up to $100 million to lure AI talent, says OpenAI's Sam Altman

Rumor mill: In the escalating race for artificial intelligence dominance, Meta has launched an aggressive recruitment campaign, offering top researchers compensation packages that have stunned the tech world. Led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company is building a new "superintelligence" team and has reportedly offered salaries worth up to $100 million to lure talent from rivals such as OpenAI and Google DeepMind. The recruitment drive has a personal element: former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang heads Meta's new AI group, and some new hires are said to be working at desks close to Zuckerberg himself. Last week, Meta finalized a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, signaling the company's commitment to catching up in the AI race. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman addressed these reports directly on a podcast hosted by his brother, Jack Altman. "Meta has started making these, like, giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said. "You know, like, $100 million signing bonuses, more than that [in] compensation per year [...] I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on that." Altman said that he has heard Meta considers OpenAI its biggest competitor, and that he respects Meta's aggressiveness and its continued efforts to try new things. But he described Meta's approach as "crazy." He noted that while his rival has sought to hire "a lot of people" from OpenAI, his employees are motivated by the belief that their company has a better shot at achieving artificial general intelligence and may ultimately become more valuable than Meta. "There's many things I respect about Meta as a company, but I don't think they're a company that's great at innovation," Altman said. Meta, once known for its prominence in open-source AI development, has experienced employee exits and delayed the release of new open-source AI models that might compete with those from Google, DeepSeek in China, and OpenAI. Altman added that Meta's focus on massive pay packages rather than on the mission of delivering AGI could undermine the kind of culture needed for true breakthroughs. Although competitive salaries are essential for hiring in the tech industry, other important factors also play a role. On a March 2024 episode of the "Invest Like The Best" podcast, Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity, said that to attract leading AI talent, companies must not only offer outstanding incentives but also guarantee immediate access to powerful computing resources. "I tried to hire a very senior researcher from Meta, and you know what they said? 'Come back to me when you have 10,000 H100 GPUs,'" Srinivas said, referencing the AI chips made by Nvidia. Meta's efforts have not been entirely fruitless. The company has successfully recruited notable researchers, including Jack Rae from Google DeepMind and Johan Schalkwyk from Sesame AI. However, attempts to poach OpenAI's Noam Brown and Google's Koray Kavukcuoglu were unsuccessful. Altman's comments reflect the fierce competition for AI talent and the cultural challenges facing companies that rely solely on financial incentives. As Meta continues to invest billions and expand its superintelligence initiative, the question remains whether money can buy the kind of innovation needed to lead the next era of artificial intelligence.

OpenAI boss accuses Meta of trying to poach staff with $100m sign-on bonuses

Sam Altman describes offer from Mark Zuckerberg's company as 'crazy', as scramble for talent in sector intensifies The boss of OpenAI has claimed that Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has tried to poach his top artificial intelligence experts with "crazy" signing bonuses of $100m (£74m), as scramble for talent in the booming sector intensifies. Sam Altman spoke about the offers in a podcast on Tuesday, but they have not been confirmed by Meta. OpenAI, the company that developed ChatGPT, said it had nothing to add beyond its chief executive's comments. "They started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team - $100m signing bonuses, more than that comp [compensation] per year," Altman told the Uncapped podcast, which is presented by his brother, Joel. "It is crazy. I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that." He said: "I think the strategy of a ton of upfront, guaranteed comp, and that being the reason you tell someone to join ... 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." Last week, Meta last week launched a $15bn move towards computerised "superintelligence" - a type of AI that can perform better than humans at all tasks. The company bought a large stake in the $29bn startup Scale AI, set up by the programmer Alexandr Wang, 28, who joined Meta as part of the deal. Last week, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Deedy Das, tweeted: "The AI talent wars are absolutely ridiculous". Das, a principal at at Menlo Ventures, said Meta had been losing AI candidates to rivals despite offering $2m-a-year salaries. Another report last month found that Anthropic, an AI company backed by Amazon and Google and set up by engineers who left Altman's company was "siphoning top talent from two of its biggest rivals: OpenAI and DeepMind". The scramble to recruit the best developers comes amid rapid advances in AI technology and a race to achieve human-level AI capacity - known as artificial general intelligence. The spending on hardware is greater still, with recent estimates from the Carlyle Group, reported by Bloomberg, that $1.8tn could be spent on computing power by 2030, That is more than the annual gross domestic product of Australia. Some tech firms are buying whole companies to lock in top talent, as seen in part with Meta's Scale AI deal and Google spending $2.7bn last year on Character.AI, which was founded by the leading AI researcher Noam Shazeer. He co-wrote the 2017 research paper Attention is all you Need, which is considered a seminal contribution to the current wave of large language model AI systems. While Meta was founded as a social media company and OpenAI as non-profit - becoming a for-profit business last year - the two are now rivals. Altman told his brother's podcast that he did not feel Meta would succeed in it's AI push, adding: "I don't think they're a company that's great at innovation." He said he had once heard Zuckerberg say that it had seemed rational for Google to try to develop a social media function in the early days of Facebook, but "it was clear to people at Facebook that that was not going to work". "I feel a little bit similar here," Altman added. Despite the huge investments in the sector, Altman suggested the result could be "we build legitimate super intelligence, and it doesn't make the world much better [and] doesn't change things as much as it sounds like it should". "The fact that you can have this thing do this amazing stuff for you, and you kind of live your life the same way you did two years ago," he said. "The thing that i think will be the most impactful in that five to 10-year timeframe is AI will actually discover new science. This is a crazy claim to make, but I think it is true, and if it is correct, then over time I think that will dwarf everything else [AI has achieved]."

Meta offered $100 mn bonuses to poach OpenAI employees: CEO Altman

Meta offered $100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker's talent and strengthen its own generative AI teams, the startup's CEO, Sam Altman, has said. Facebook's parent company -- a competitor of OpenAI -- also offered "giant" annual salaries exceeding $100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the "Uncapped with Jack Altman" podcast released Tuesday. "It is crazy," Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. "I'm really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them up on that." The OpenAI cofounder said Meta had made the offers to "a lot of people on our team." Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The social media titan has invested billions of dollars in artificial intelligence technology amid fierce competition in the AI race with rivals OpenAI, Google and Microsoft. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in January that the firm planned to invest at least $60 billion in AI this year, with ambitions to lead in the technology. Last week, Meta entered into a deal reportedly worth more than $10 billion with Scale AI, a company specializing in labeling data used in training artificial intelligence models. As part of the deal, company founder and CEO Alexandr Wang will join Meta to help with the tech giant's AI ambitions, including its work on superintelligence efforts. Comparing Meta to his company, Altman said on the podcast that "OpenAI has a much better shot at delivering on superintelligence." "I think the strategy of a ton of upfront guaranteed comp and that being the reason you tell someone to join... I don't think that's going to set up a great culture," the OpenAI boss added. According to US media reports, Meta has also offered nine-figure annual salaries to Scale AI executives. "There's many things I respect about Meta as a company," said Altman. "But I don't think they're a company that's great at innovation."

Meta made insane offers in bid to nab OpenAI talent, Altman claims

OpenAI chief Sam Altman has said that Meta tried to tempt his top AI researchers to switch sides by offering hiring bonuses of $100 million. Yes, you read that right -- $100 million. Altman said that up to now, none of his top team have left for Mark Zuckerberg's Meta. Altman made the claim on Tuesday in the Uncapped podcast, hosted by his brother, Jack. Recommended Videos "[Meta] started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team," the OpenAI boss said. "You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year." He added: "I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that." The crazy offer is a mark of the intense competition that exists in the AI space, with Meta keen to avoid falling behind the likes of OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft when it comes to building out compelling AI products. Indeed, the tech industry is witnessing an unprecedented battle for AI researchers, with compensation packages reaching levels previously unseen outside of elite finance or sports. The situation means that AI companies are also having to make some major offers to current employees in order to keep them on board. OpenAI has reportedly offered retention bonuses of several million dollars to persuade its top researchers to stay -- on top of their reported $10 million annual pay -- with Altman saying in Tuesday's podcast that he thinks the financial rewards for his staff will grow over time. "I think it's incentive aligned [at OpenAI], with mission first and economic rewards and everything else following from that," he said. In a Reuters report last month, leading OpenAI researcher Noam Brown said that when he was looking at job opportunities two years ago, he was courted by tech industry's elite players. "Lunch with Google founder Sergey Brin, poker at Sam Altman's, and a private jet visit from an eager investor," the report said. Brown said that even though it wasn't the best offer financially, he ended up going with OpenAI as the company seemed intent on putting the right level of resources into its efforts.

Mark Zuckerberg offers $100m signing-up bonuses to poach tech talent

Mark Zuckerberg has been offering $100m (£74m) signing-on bonuses to lure staff from the maker of ChatGPT as Meta steps up its race to develop artificial intelligence (AI). Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, ChatGPT's creator, claimed Mr Zuckerberg's company had been making "giant offers" to poach staff from his business. Speaking on a podcast, Mr Altman said: "They started making these giant offers to a lot of people in our team. $100m signing bonuses, more than that comp per year. It is crazy." "I am really happy that so far none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," he added. It comes as Meta plays catch-up in the race to develop next-generation artificial intelligence, a field pioneered by OpenAI. Mr Zuckerberg has taken a personal interest in the technology and has been spending billions to close the gap with rivals. Last week, Meta announced it would pay $14bn to take a 49pc stake in Scale AI, a fast-growing Silicon Valley AI company, and hire its 28-year-old founder Alexandr Wang to lead a new team dedicated to so-called "super-intelligence".

Meta offered $100 million bonuses to poach OpenAI employees

The comments were in reference to The Information's report last week that Meta plans to unveil a new artificial intelligence research lab dedicated to pursuing "superintelligence," a hypothetical AI system that exceeds the powers of the human brain. Meta has tapped Alexandr Wang, 28, the founder and CEO of start-up Scale AI, to join the lab, sources told The Information. Meta has also been in talks to invest almost $5 billion into Wang's company, while bring other Scale AI employees on board. It's part of a wider recruitment effort, sources told the publication, as the firm offers seven- to nine-figure compensation packages to dozens of AI researchers from competitors such as OpenAI and Google.

Why OpenAI engineers are turning down $100 million from Meta, according to Sam Altman

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says competitors, particularly Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, have been trying to poach OpenAI engineers with sky-high compensation packages. "They started making these, like, giant offers to people on our team. You know, like $100 million signing bonuses and more than that in compensation per year," Altman said this week on the Uncapped podcast, hosted by his brother, Jack Altman. Altman said he was glad to see that those enticing offers haven't worked on OpenAI's best people. He assumes this is because they looked at the two paths, Meta and OpenAI, and concluded that the latter has a better shot at delivering on superintelligence and will eventually become the more valuable company. Amid the digs, Altman said Meta is missing the one thing that truly matters in AI: a culture of real innovation. "There are many things I respect about Meta as a company, but I don't think they're great at innovation," said Altman, when discussing Meta's attempts to lure OpenAI engineers. He explained that by trying to recruit OpenAI staff with massive guaranteed compensation packages, Meta is essentially building a culture that prioritizes money over the work and mission. He believes that focusing on money rather than purpose and product is a recipe for the wrong kind of culture. Altman contrasted this with OpenAI's approach, which he said attracts and retains talent by aligning financial incentives with a shared sense of purpose and innovative work. "The special thing about OpenAI is we've managed to build a culture that is good at innovation, and I think we understand a lot of things they don't know about what it takes to succeed at that," he explained further. Drawing a parallel to past tech rivalries, Altman recalled hearing Zuckerberg discuss how Google tried to enter the social media space in the early days of Facebook. However, to those at Facebook, it was clear that it wasn't going to work for Google. Altman said he now feels similarly about Meta's approach to AI, suggesting that Meta is making an error by trying to replicate OpenAI's success directly. He even discussed how he believes many people at Meta simply copy OpenAI. Altman explained this with an example of how many other companies' chat apps resemble ChatGPT, down to the UI mistakes. He drew from his own experience to argue that the copy-and-paste strategy is fundamentally flawed, and that trying to go where your competitor already is, instead of building a culture around innovation, rarely works. When asked why he thinks Meta sees OpenAI as such a competitor, Altman mentioned how an ex-Meta employee once told him that Meta views ChatGPT as a Facebook replacement. He explained that the user experience with ChatGPT felt different, like one of the few tech products that didn't feel "somewhat adversarial." He contrasted this with Google, which he said has started showing worse search results, and with Meta's products, which try to hack users' brains to keep them scrolling. Instead of doing either, ChatGPT simply tries to help users with whatever questions they may have, and even help them feel better. Beyond discussing Meta, the Altman brothers talked about a wide range of topics related to the future of AI, OpenAI's strategy, and even Sam's personal reflections. Altman made a "crazy claim" that AI will discover new science, and that humanoid robots are one of his dreams -- something he thinks will be achievable within the next 5 to 10 years.

Desperate Zuckerberg Apparently Offering OpenAI Staffers $100 Million Bonuses to Come Save His Failing AI Efforts

Certain sought-after AI engineers might want to jot this down: Mark Zuckerberg is apparently offering sign-on bonuses as high as $100 million -- yes, a full tenth of a billion dollars -- to join Meta's new "superintelligence" AI lab. There's only one caveat to snagging this life-altering offer: you need to work at OpenAI to get the invite. According to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Zuckerberg has been trying to poach his employees by offering nine-figure welcome bonuses, on top of annual salaries ranging anywhere from seven to nine figures. Altman, sometimes said to be Zuckerberg's chief co-competitor in the mythic "AI race," complained that Meta has attempted to hire "a lot of people" from his company. "So far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," he said on his brother Jack Altman's "Uncapped" podcast. Poaching is a common -- though sometimes legally dubious -- tactic in the highfalutin business world, and usually happens when a firm looks to scoop up a rival's high-profile executives, and sometimes the executive's underlings. In the US tech space, poaching usually looks like "big tech" firms nabbing promising young staffers from up-and-coming startups, fueling widespread allegations that the American tech industry runs on monopoly power rather than innovation. For Meta, poaching is both a familiar move, and likely a necessary one, if the company hopes to eke out the monopoly on consumer large language models (LLMs.) The company recently acquired the sketchy startup Scale AI, and is working to integrate its employees into Zuckerberg's superintelligence AI unit. That recently formed team is widely understood as Meta's last-ditch attempt to pull out all the stops in the face of mounting LLM failures. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Sam Altman quipped. "Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things." In all, Meta's seeking to fill 50 seats, with Zuckerberg reported to be personally involved in recruitment. His company has successfully poached researchers from Google's AI research group DeepMind, including Jack Rae, the team's principal scientist. But whether Zuckerberg's deep pockets will turn the tide on Meta's lagging LLM development remains to be seen. Altman, of course, has his doubts that you can buy an innovative team outright. "I think that there's a lot of people, and Meta will be a new one, that are saying 'we're just going to try to copy OpenAI,'" he said. "That basically never works. You're always going to where your competitor was, and you don't build up a culture of learning what it's like to innovate." OpenAI, meanwhile, recently acquired the expertise of former Apple bigwig Jony Ive in a $6.4 billion acquisition in May -- making big spending seem more like the rule, rather than the exception.

Meta's $100m signing bonuses for OpenAI staff are just the latest sign of extreme AI talent war

Altman said on an episode of Uncapped that Meta had been making "giant offers to a lot of people on our team," some totaling "$100 million signing bonuses and more than that [in] compensation per year." It's the latest example of the intense competition for top talent and the lengths companies are willing to go to recruit and retain them. Meta is particularly committed to its AI recruiting drive at the moment. The company has lost several of its top AI researchers in recent years and currently is fighting a narrative that it has fallen behind in the AI race after its newest Llama 3 model received a lukewarm reaction from developers. This has kicked Zuckerberg into overdrive and reportedly led the CEO to personally recruit for a new 50-person "Superintelligence" AI team at Meta. Meta also recently invested up to $15 billion for a 49% stake in the training data company, ScaleAI, as part of a plan to hire the company's CEO Alexandr Wang. While Altman said that none of his best people had decided to take up Mark Zuckerberg's generous offer, Meta has managed to lure other prominent AI researchers. According to Bloomberg, Meta has also hired Jack Rae, a principal researcher at Google DeepMind, for the team and brought on Johan Schalkwyk, a machine learning leader from the AI voice startup Sesame AI. Meta was reportedly unsuccessful in its efforts to poach top OpenAI researcher, Noam Brown, and Google's AI architect, Koray Kavukcuoglu. Meta is also trailing fellow AI labs with a retention rate of 64%, according to SignalFire's recently released 2025 State of Talent Report. At buzzy AI startup Anthropic, 80% of employees hired at least two years ago are still at the company, an impressive figure in an industry known for its high turnover. Representatives for Meta did not immediately respond to a recent request for comment from Fortune, made outside the company's normal working hours. Zuckerberg's salary offers are reaching the pro-athlete threshold, which, as Fortune's Sharon Goldman notes, is becoming par for the course in the industry. Deedy Das, a VC at Menlo Ventures, previously told Fortune that he has heard from several people the Meta CEO has tried to recruit. "Zuck had phone calls with potential hires trying to convince them to join with a $2M/yr floor." While Meta may be making headlines, it is not the only company going to extreme lengths to retain and recruit this talent. Google DeepMind is reportedly enforcing six-to-12-month noncompete clauses that prevent some AI researchers from joining competitors -- paying them full salaries even while they're sidelined. Over at OpenAI, the company is rumored to be offering sky-high compensation to retain talent, with top researchers earning over $10 million annually. According to Reuters, the company has offered more than $2 million in retention bonuses and equity packages exceeding $20 million to deter defections to Ilya Sutskever's new venture, SSI. While elite AI labs are working overtime to lock in top talent, the full picture for AI engineers, especially junior talent, is not quite so rosy. Several recent reports, including SignalFire's 2025 State of Talent Report, have suggested that entry-level hiring in the tech industry is collapsing. According to the report, hiring for mid and senior-level roles has bounced back from the 2023 slump but the cuts for new grads have just kept coming. Among Big Tech companies, new grads account for just 7% of hires, down 25% from 2023 and over 50% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019. For startups, new grads make up less than 6% of new hires, down 11% from 2023 and over 30% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.

Meta is Attempting to Poach OpenAI Staff With $100M Signing Bonuses: Sam Altman - Decrypt

The AI industry's compensation reaches new heights as companies compete for talent. Multinational tech giant Meta is offering OpenAI employees signing bonuses of up to $100 million alongside annual compensation packages exceeding that amount, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman alleged on Monday's "Uncapped" podcast. Meta had been making "giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said on the podcast, which aired on Tuesday, and hosted by his brother, Jack Altman. In the conversation, Altman said that none of his company's "best people" have accepted these packages to date. Meta's recruitment efforts reportedly have CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally contacting researchers and hosting meetings at his private residences in Lake Tahoe and Palo Alto, according to a prior Bloomberg report citing people approached by Zuckerberg. Altman's claims of massive compensation offers from Meta appear to confirm a report from The Information last year, in which Zuckerberg allegedly sent emails and "quick offers" for top talent to join his team. Altman's comments have not been substantiated. Meta and OpenAI did not immediately respond to Decrypt's request for comment. Altman's podcast conversation comes as Meta attempts to ramp up its AI efforts. Last week, it invested $14 billion in data-labelling startup Scale AI, in hopes of catching up with its rivals, forming a "superintelligence division" to be led by Alexandr Wang, Scale AI's 26-year-old founder and CEO. Substantial demand for AI talent has driven up compensation in the industry. Industry data compiled by venture capital firm SignalFire shows that significant changes are underway in the AI sector. Among elite labs from top AI firms, top talent is getting locked in: Anthropic leads with an 80% two-year retention rate, followed by Google's DeepMind at 78% and OpenAI at 67%. But while Meta spends $2 million per year for AI talent, it is "still losing them to OpenAI and Anthropic," according to an X post by Deedy Das, principal investor at Menlo Ventures. The report also shows that top AI talent is gravitating toward Anthropic, which is pulling in more employees from rivals like DeepMind and OpenAI than it's losing. DeepMind is considered one of the most significant sources of talent for other labs, suggesting it's facing considerable attrition. Meanwhile, smaller players like Hugging Face are gaining traction, pulling researchers from bigger firms. Some companies, such as Safe Superintelligence (SSI), founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, were offered retention packages that included $2 million bonuses and equity increases of $20 million or more, with some arrangements requiring one-year commitments for full compensation, according to a Reuters report in May. Those moves have opened scrutiny from the U.S. government, with three senators calling the practice into question in an open letter last year.

Meta offered $100 mn bonuses to poach OpenAI employees: CEO Altman

New York (AFP) - Meta offered $100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker's talent and strengthen its own generative AI teams, the startup's CEO, Sam Altman, has said. Facebook's parent company -- a competitor of OpenAI -- also offered "giant" annual salaries exceeding $100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the "Uncapped with Jack Altman" podcast released Tuesday. "It is crazy," Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. "I'm really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them up on that." The OpenAI cofounder said Meta had made the offers to "a lot of people on our team." Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The social media titan has invested billions of dollars in artificial intelligence technology amid fierce competition in the AI race with rivals OpenAI, Google and Microsoft. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in January that the firm planned to invest at least $60 billion in AI this year, with ambitions to lead in the technology. Last week, Meta entered into a deal reportedly worth more than $10 billion with Scale AI, a company specializing in labeling data used in training artificial intelligence models. As part of the deal, company founder and CEO Alexandr Wang will join Meta to help with the tech giant's AI ambitions, including its work on superintelligence efforts. Comparing Meta to his company, Altman said on the podcast that "OpenAI has a much better shot at delivering on superintelligence." "I think the strategy of a ton of upfront guaranteed comp and that being the reason you tell someone to join... I don't think that's going to set up a great culture," the OpenAI boss added. According to US media reports, Meta has also offered nine-figure annual salaries to Scale AI executives. "There's many things I respect about Meta as a company," said Altman. "But I don't think they're a company that's great at innovation."

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says Meta's offered $100 million to poach staff

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, ChatGPT's parent company, said that rival Meta is offering "giant" signing bonuses to his staff if they switch to work for them. OpenAI's boss has accused Meta of trying to poach his his best employees with $100 million (€87 million) in signing bonuses. Sam Altman told his brother Jack on his podcast that Meta was offering more than that in "compensation per year," but didn't elaborate on any of the benefits or stock options being offered. Meta, the owner of the social and messaging apps Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, just made a $14 billion (€12.18 billion) investment to buy a 49 per cent stake in Scale AI, an artificial intelligence startup, as a way of bolstering the AI side of its business. Scale AI had a preexisting business relationship with OpenAI, where it fine-tuned their more advanced ChatGPT models. Global leaders say winning the AI race is critical to national security and for advancements in health, business, and technology. Meanwhile, companies such as OpenAI, Google and DeepSeek, among many others, are battling it out to build the best AI platforms. Altman said that while he respects Meta's "aggression" in competing with OpenAI, but that so far, none of his top talent has left him yet. "I think Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor and, you know, I think it's rational for them to keep trying [with AI]," Altman said. "I think the strategy of a ton of upfront guaranteed comp(ensation) and that being the reason you tell someone to join ... I don't think that's going to set up a great culture". Altman added that he respects much about Meta but doesn't think it is "great at innovation". Instead, Altman thinks staff are staying at OpenAI because of a "really special culture" at his company and their mission to create artificial superintelligence, where AI will be smarter than humans. "I think people look at the two paths [OpenAI vs Meta] and they say OpenAI's got a really good shot, a much better shot on actually delivering on super intelligence and may eventually be the more valuable company," he said.

Meta Accused of Offering $100M Bonus to Lure OpenAI Talent, Altman Says Culture Can't Be Bought | AIM

Altman questioned the long-term impact of compensation-heavy hiring strategies, adding that they do not set up a great culture Meta is on a poaching spree. The company has reportedly been offering extremely high compensation packages to employees at OpenAI, including signing bonuses of $100 million or more, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. In a recent podcast hosted by his brother, Jack Altman, Sam Altman said, "They started making these like giant offers to a lot of people on our team -- $100 million signing bonuses, more than that comp per year." Despite the aggressive hiring attempts, he said that "so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that." According to reports, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally recruiting for a new "superintelligence" team, offering hefty payouts to top AI researchers across the industry. Last week, Meta announced a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI and brought on Scale's CEO, Alexandr Wang, to join the effort. "The rest of the world, people think of ChatGPT as a Google replacement, but in Meta, people think of ChatGPT as like a Facebook replacement, because people are just spending all their time talking to it," said Sam Altman, adding that there is a time competition too where users are spending more time. Sam Altman acknowledged Meta's determination in the AI space. He remarked that Meta views them as its primary competitor, noting that its current AI initiatives have not been as successful as anticipated. Altman speculated that if this particular attempt does not succeed, Meta will likely continue to explore new options in the future. He also questioned the long-term impact of compensation-heavy hiring strategies, adding, "The strategy of a ton of upfront guaranteed comp and that being the reason you tell someone to join... I don't think that's going to set up a great culture." According to Sam Altman, OpenAI's approach is more focused on aligning incentives around the mission. "If we succeed at that, everybody will do great financially." He concluded by noting the cultural gap between the two companies. "We've managed to build a culture that is good at repeatable innovation. I think we understand a lot of things that they don't about what it takes to succeed at that."

Altman says Meta offered $100M to transfer OpenAI staff

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed that Meta attempted to recruit OpenAI's AI researchers with compensation packages potentially exceeding $100 million. Altman made these remarks on a podcast with his brother, Jack Altman, published on Tuesday. Altman stated that, to date, none of OpenAI's "best people" have accepted Meta's offers. He suggested this was due to the belief that OpenAI has a greater likelihood of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and becoming the more valuable company, further asserting that Meta's emphasis on high compensation, instead of focusing on delivering AGI, would hinder their culture. Reportedly, Meta's recruitment efforts included attempts to hire Noam Brown, a lead researcher at OpenAI, and Koray Kavukcuoglu, an AI architect from Google. These efforts proved unsuccessful. Altman added that OpenAI's innovative culture is a key factor in its success and believes Meta's "current AI efforts have not worked as well as they hoped." Meta's efforts to expand its AI superintelligence lab include the hiring of Alexandr Wang, former CEO of Scale AI, to lead the team and reports that Meta invested significantly in Scale AI. Meta has also reportedly hired Jack Rae from Google DeepMind and Johan Schalkwyk from Sesame AI. Altman also described during the podcast an AI-powered social media feed, potentially competing with Meta's existing platforms. He expressed interest in an AI-driven social media application that uses AI to deliver custom feeds to users. OpenAI is reportedly developing a social networking application internally, while Meta is experimenting with a similar concept through its Meta AI app.

Meta forms elite AI unit with $14B war chest

According to The Wall Street Journal, Mark Zuckerberg has personally contacted hundreds of AI researchers and engineers through emails and WhatsApp messages to recruit for a new Superintelligence lab, offering substantial financial incentives, including packages potentially reaching $100 million, to attract talent to Meta Platforms. Some individuals who received messages from Zuckerberg initially doubted their authenticity, with one person assuming the outreach was a hoax and delaying their response for several days. These recruitment efforts involve sums of money that could establish them as some of the most expensive hires in the technology sector's history. While significant financial offers have been extended, some potential candidates have expressed hesitation regarding Meta Platforms' AI endeavors, citing challenges faced by the company's AI initiatives this year and organizational restructures that have created uncertainty about internal leadership roles. Meta's struggles in developing advanced artificial intelligence technology became evident in April, following accusations that the company manipulated a leaderboard to enhance the perceived performance of a recently released AI model. The company also postponed the unveiling of a new, flagship AI model, prompting questions about its sustained ability to advance swiftly in the industry-wide AI arms race. To address these issues, Zuckerberg has assumed an active role in recruitment. He has attempted to recruit OpenAI co-founder John Schulman and Bill Peebles, a co-creator of OpenAI's Sora video generator; neither joined Meta. Zuckerberg also sought to recruit OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. Meta invested in Sutskever's new AI startup, Safe Superintelligence (SSI), earlier this year. Meta is additionally in discussions to hire Daniel Gross, SSI's CEO, and Nat Friedman, a former GitHub CEO and Microsoft executive. These discussions include Meta's offer to acquire portions of their venture fund, with the intent for Gross and Friedman to develop new AI products at Meta. Zuckerberg also conducted discussions with Perplexity and offered to acquire the AI search startup. Zuckerberg committed $14 billion for a stake in AI startup Scale and its CEO, Alexandr Wang, aged 28, who is slated to lead the new AI team being assembled by Zuckerberg. This transaction effectively designates Wang as one of the most financially significant hires in history. The overall success of these recruitment efforts beyond the Scale deal and a limited number of other hires remains unconfirmed. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stated publicly that his top personnel remain with his company. OpenAI has issued counteroffers, providing increased compensation and expanded job responsibilities, to retain employees targeted by Meta's recruitment attempts. For individuals who declined Meta's offers, Zuckerberg's stated vision for his new AI team also raised concerns. The team, projected to consist of approximately 50 members, is tasked with achieving substantial advancements in AI models, including the development of "superintelligence." Some potential recruits found this concept vague or lacking a specific execution plan beyond the hiring drive. Potential hires and current Meta AI employees also highlighted a point of disagreement concerning Meta's chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun, who expresses skepticism about the fundamental approach to AI advancement currently adopted by Meta and other industry participants. LeCun, whom Zuckerberg recruited in 2013 to lead a newly established AI research division, does not believe that the large language models under development will lead to artificial intelligence surpassing human intellect. The turning point for Zuckerberg's intensified focus on AI recruitment occurred last spring after an AI model release did not meet expectations. Company insiders report that Zuckerberg has never demonstrated such a concentrated effort on recruiting. Zuckerberg participates in a WhatsApp chat named "Recruiting Party" with Ruta Singh, a Meta executive overseeing recruiting, and Janelle Gale, the company's head of people. Zuckerberg also engages directly with detailed AI research papers, seeking to identify key contributors in the field. He operates on the principle that recruiting the most knowledgeable individuals will lead to introductions within their professional networks. When the "Recruiting Party" chat identifies targets, Zuckerberg ascertains their preferred communication methods and initiates contact personally. Zuckerberg has assumed direct control over recruiting, recognizing it as an area where his personal involvement has significant leverage within the company he founded; a direct email from him carries more weight than outreach from a third-party recruiter. Once researchers confirm the authenticity of the CEO's outreach, Zuckerberg frequently hosts them for meals at his residences in Palo Alto, California, and Lake Tahoe. He maintains involvement throughout the recruiting process, extending to planning their desk locations. He assures researchers of ample computing power and funding at Meta, emphasizing that their work will be supported by hundreds of billions of dollars in advertising revenue and the company's extensive access to powerful chips. However, the ultimate efficacy of this strategy, combining personal engagement with substantial financial incentives, remains to be seen. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has publicly dismissed the success of Zuckerberg's recruiting efforts, stating, "At least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that."

Meta Is Trying to Poach OpenAI Employees With 'Giant' $100 Million Offers, Sam Altman Says

Still, Altman also noted that his company's "best people" haven't taken Meta's offer. The AI talent wars are heating up as Meta attempts to poach talent from OpenAI with $100 million signing bonuses and even higher salaries -- but OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says the company's "best people" have turned down Meta's offer. On an episode of the "Uncapped" podcast that aired on Tuesday, Altman, 40, spoke candidly about Meta's efforts to recruit OpenAI researchers with "giant offers." While Meta's efforts have been unsuccessful so far, Altman expressed disbelief at the nine-figure signing bonuses and salaries. The average employee at OpenAI makes $1.13 million per year, according to Levels.fyi. "They [Meta] started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said in the podcast interview. "$100 million signing bonuses, more than that comp [compensation] per year. It is crazy. I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that." Related: Here's How Much a Typical Google Employee Makes in a Year Altman said that the reason OpenAI researchers chose to stay at the startup instead of moving to higher salaries at Meta was because they think OpenAI has "a much better shot" of reaching superintelligence, or the point where AI surpasses human intelligence in memory, reasoning, and knowledge. He said that OpenAI had created a "special" type of culture that wasn't based on high upfront compensation but on the work and the mission of the startup. OpenAI's mission of developing AI to benefit "all of humanity" comes first, with the financial incentives flowing from achieving that mission, Altman said. "I hope that we can be the best place in the world to do [AI] research," Altman asserted. Meta has recently started assembling a 50-person team, the Superintelligence lab, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, 41, is reportedly overseeing the hiring. According to a Bloomberg report last week, Zuckerberg has been offering AI researchers compensation packages ranging from seven to nine figures to join the team. Zuckerberg wants to pull ahead of rivals like OpenAI and Google and make Meta lead the race to achieve superintelligence, according to the report. Related: The Former Chief Scientist Behind ChatGPT Is Starting His Own Company -- With Only One Goal and One Product in Mind However, Meta still appears to be losing AI talent. Deedy Das, a principal at venture capital firm Menlo Partners, wrote on X that he had heard of three cases last week of Meta losing researchers to OpenAI and Anthropic despite offering them more than $2 million per year. "The AI talent wars are absolutely ridiculous," Das wrote. Meta has also recently made a hefty investment in exchange for fresh talent. The company announced last week that it was investing $14.3 billion into data labeling startup Scale AI, in return for a 49% stake in the startup and the acquisition of talent. Scale AI's 28-year-old CEO Alexandr Wang will reportedly join Meta's superintelligence team in a top leadership role. Both Meta and OpenAI have substantial user bases. Zuckerberg said in May that Meta's AI assistant has one billion monthly active users. Meanwhile, OpenAI said in late March that it had 500 million weekly active users.

Sam Altman Says Meta Offered $100 Million Bonuses to OpenAI Employees

Meta recently invested $14.3 billion in data-labeling startup Scale AI OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that Meta has offered his employees bonuses of $100 million (roughly Rs. 863 crore) to recruit them, as the tech giant seeks to ramp up its artificial intelligence strategy. The alleged attempts by Meta to hire OpenAI staffers are the latest signs of a frenzy to hire top engineers to develop AI models, and they come at a time when the Facebook owner is working on building its superintelligence unit to catch up with competitors. Competition for AI talent has reached a feverish pitch as superstar researchers are being courted like professional athletes on the belief that individual contributors can make or break companies. "They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said on the Uncapped podcast that aired on Tuesday, hosted by his brother. "You know, like $100 million (roughly Rs. 863 crore) signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year." "At least, so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," Altman said. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours, and Reuters could not verify the information. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Altman said. His comments come just days after Meta invested $14.3 billion (roughly Rs. 1,23,421 crore) in data-labeling startup Scale AI, and hired its top boss, Alexandr Wang, to lead its new superintelligence team. Meta, once recognized as a leader in open-source AI models, has suffered from staff departures and has postponed the launches of new open-source AI models that could rival competitors like Google, China's DeepSeek and OpenAI. © Thomson Reuters 2025

Sam Altman Says Meta Offered OpenAI Staff $100M Signing Bonuses

The alleged attempts to poach OpenAI staffers come as Zuckerberg reportedly has been frustrated with Meta's level of AI progress. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Meta Platforms (META) offered signing bonuses as high as $100 million to poach the ChatGPT maker's staffers. Speaking on his brother's "Uncapped with Jack Altman" podcast, Sam Altman added that the Facebook parent was offering even larger annual compensation packages. "I'm really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take (Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg) up on that." Altman added, "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," and that "their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped." Meta didn't immediately respond to an Investopedia request for comment. The alleged attempts to poach OpenAI staffers come as Zuckerberg reportedly has been frustrated with Meta's level of AI progress. The tech giant recently made a "significant new investment" in Scale AI that valued the startup at more than than $29 billion and hired CEO Alexandr Wang to boost its efforts in the technology.

Sam Altman Says Mark Zuckerberg Tries to Poach OpenAI Staffers with $100M Bonuses

Meta's "current A.I. efforts have not worked as well as they've hoped," Sam Altman said on a podcast hosted by his brother. As Mark Zuckerberg aggressively assembles a new A.I. team within Meta, the tech billionaire is attempting to poach top staffers at OpenAI with signing bonuses as high as $100 million, according to Sam Altman. "I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," Altman said in a recent episode of Uncapped, a podcast hosted by his brother, Jack Altman. Sam Altman didn't elaborate on whether the signing bonuses were offered in cash, stock options or other forms of payment. Meta did not respond to requests for comment from Observer. Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter Sign Up Thank you for signing up! By clicking submit, you agree to our <a href="http://observermedia.com/terms">terms of service</a> and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime. See all of our newsletters Meta and OpenAI, alongside other tech giants like Google and Microsoft, are currently locked in a full-speed race to develop advanced A.I. systems that could outsmart human beings. Zuckerberg has plans to assemble a 50-person team amid frustrations that Meta's current A.I. efforts, such as its open-source model Llama, are not progressing fast enough. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor, and I think it's rational of them to keep trying -- their current A.I. efforts have not worked as well as they've hoped," said Altman during the podcast episode, which was aired yesterday (June 17). "There are many things I respect from Meta as a company, but I don't think they're a company that's great at innovation," he added. With plans to spend between $64 billion and $72 billion on A.I. initiatives this year, Meta is ramping up efforts across data centers, hardware, and talent acquisition. Earlier this month, it signed a deal to invest more than $14 billion in Scale AI, a data infrastructure startup. As part of the agreement, Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang -- a longtime friend of Altman's -- will leave the company to lead Meta's new A.I. team. Zuckerberg is personally spearheading Meta's A.I. recruitment push. According to Bloomberg, he has been meeting nearly all new hires himself, hosting dinners at his homes in Lake Tahoe and Palo Alto to make personal recruitment pitches, and even rearranging office layouts so that the A.I. team sits closer to him. So far, the company has reportedly succeeded in poaching high-profile talent, including Jack Rae, a researcher at Google DeepMind, and Johan Schalkwyk, a machine learning lead from Sesame AI. Altman isn't convinced that Meta's aggressive compensation packages will translate into long-term success. "To 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," Altman said. "I think that people sort of look at the two paths and say, all right, OpenAI's got a really good shot -- a much better shot -- at actually delivering on superintelligence, and also may eventually be the more valuable company." Meta pays software engineering annual packages that range from $212,000 to $3.67 million, while OpenAI pays $238,000 to $1.34 million, including stocks, according to Levels.fyi, a compensation tracking site. Zuckerberg earned $27.2 million last year in stocks and bonuses. He isn't paid a base salary as CEO of the company. Rival companies showing interest in OpenAI is nothing new to Altman, who recalled a former Meta employee once telling him that the company viewed ChatGPT as a potential "Facebook replacement." Unlike Meta's social feeds, however, Altman argued that ChatGPT aims to be genuinely helpful rather than contributing to unhealthy habits like "doom-scrolling." Altman also criticized other tech giants for negatively impacting users, singling out Google for its ad-driven model and Apple for the addictive nature of the iPhone. "And then you have ChatGPT," he said. "I feel like it's just trying to help me with whatever I ask -- and that's kind of a nice thing."

Sam Altman says Meta offered $100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees

Competition for AI talent has reached a feverish pitch as superstar researchers are being courted like professional athletes on the belief that individual contributors can make or break companies. "They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said on the Uncapped podcast that aired on Tuesday, hosted by his brother. "You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year."OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that Meta has offered his employees bonuses of $100 million to recruit them, as the tech giant seeks to ramp up its artificial intelligence strategy. The alleged attempts by Meta to hire OpenAI staffers are the latest signs of a frenzy to hire top engineers to develop AI models, and they come at a time when the Facebook owner is working on building its superintelligence unit to catch up with competitors. Competition for AI talent has reached a feverish pitch as superstar researchers are being courted like professional athletes on the belief that individual contributors can make or break companies. "They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said on the Uncapped podcast that aired on Tuesday, hosted by his brother. "You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year." "At least, so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," Altman said. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours, and Reuters could not verify the information. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Altman said. His comments come just days after Meta invested $14.3 billion in data-labeling startup Scale AI, and hired its top boss, Alexandr Wang, to lead its new superintelligence team. Meta, once recognized as a leader in open-source AI models, has suffered from staff departures and has postponed the launches of new open-source AI models that could rival competitors like Google, China's DeepSeek and OpenAI.

Meta is not 'great' at innovation: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

Sam Altman said he doesn't see Meta as particularly strong in innovation and suggested it views OpenAI as a main competitor. Speaking on his brother's podcast, the OpenAI CEO also claimed that Meta has tried to lure OpenAI staff with exceptionally large offers.OpenAI's Sam Altman said he believes that Facebook's parent company, Meta, is not particularly "great" when it comes to innovation. In his brother's podcast 'Uncapped with Jack Altman', the OpenAI chief said, "There's many things I respect about Meta as a company. But I don't think they're a company that's like great at innovation." He said that the "special thing" about OpenAI is that the company has built a culture that is good at "repeatable" innovation. "I think we understand a lot of things that they don't about what it takes to succeed," Altman claimed. The brothers were discussing the Meta-ScaleAI deal when Sam Altman mentioned that he had heard Meta considers OpenAI its biggest competitor. He further claimed that the Mark Zuckerberg-led company has attempted to hire OpenAI staff. "They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team. You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year," he explained. "I'm really happy that at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," he said. His remarks follow Meta's $14.3 billion investment in data-labelling startup Scale AI and the appointment of its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to head the company's newly formed superintelligence team. While major clients such as Google and Elon Musk's xAI are considering moving away from Scale AI over data privacy concerns, OpenAI said that it will continue working with the startup.

Rs 850 crore as signing bonus for an IT job? Yes. Sam Altman says rivals are trying to poach OpenAI staff with astronomical salaries

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta is attempting to lure his top staff with signing bonuses of up to $100 million (around Rs 850 crore), along with high annual compensation packages. Despite these massive offers, Altman said none of OpenAI's core team members have left so far. He attributed their loyalty to OpenAI's unique mission and culture, which focuses on developing superintelligent AI. Meta's aggressive recruitment comes amid its broader push to expand its AI capabilities, including a $14 billion investment in Scale AI. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has revealed that rival tech giant Meta is attempting to lure away his top talent with massive financial incentives -- reportedly offering signing bonuses as high as $100 million (approximately Rs 850 crore). Altman made the disclosure during a podcast hosted by his brother Jack Altman, where he discussed the increasingly competitive landscape in artificial intelligence recruitment. Altman said that Meta has been reaching out to several members of the OpenAI team with aggressive compensation packages that include not just hefty signing bonuses but additional annual remuneration that exceeds those figures. Despite these enormous offers, he noted that so far, none of OpenAI's core researchers or engineers have accepted the proposals. Meta's strategy comes amid a larger push to strengthen its AI division. The company, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, recently invested $14 billion to acquire a 49% stake in Scale AI -- a startup that previously worked closely with OpenAI on fine-tuning ChatGPT models. This move underlines Meta's ambition to advance in the AI race, which is increasingly seen as central to global technological dominance. Industry analysts say such enormous compensation packages reflect how critical elite AI researchers have become. According to Forrester's principal analyst, the tech sector views a small group of highly skilled engineers as a crucial edge in gaining dominance over AI systems, making talent acquisition a high-risk, high-reward game. While acknowledging Meta's aggressive recruitment tactics, Altman stressed that the culture at OpenAI plays a bigger role in retaining staff. He believes that OpenAI's mission -- to create artificial superintelligence that surpasses human capabilities -- is a key factor in why employees choose to stay. He argued that while large financial incentives can tempt people in the short term, they don't build sustainable workplace environments. Instead, he credits OpenAI's cohesive culture and long-term vision as the reasons why top talent continues to stay committed. Altman also shared his perspective on Meta's innovation capabilities. While he said he respects the company's competitiveness, he doesn't believe Meta excels in groundbreaking innovation. In contrast, he positioned OpenAI as being further ahead in its mission to develop truly transformative AI systems. The ongoing rivalry highlights how tech giants are investing unprecedented resources into AI. Earlier this year, OpenAI announced plans to allocate $500 billion toward building new data centers in the U.S., underlining the scale of its infrastructure ambitions. Analysts say the fierce competition stems from a broader belief that AI is on the verge of revolutionizing every industry -- from healthcare to finance. As major players like Meta, OpenAI, Google, and DeepMind vie for dominance, the AI space has turned into a battleground where compensation, mission, and innovation intersect.

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Dangled '$100 Million Signing Bonuses' To OpenAI Team Members, Says Sam Altman: Happy 'None' Of Our Best People Took Them - Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)

Meta Platforms, Inc. META reportedly offered $100 million compensation packages to lure top OpenAI talent but CEO Sam Altman says the company's best people are staying put because they believe more in achieving AGI. What Happened: Speaking on a podcast with his brother, Jack Altman, which was released on Tuesday, Altman confirmed recent reports that Meta tried to recruit researchers from his company and Alphabet Inc.'s GOOG GOOGL Google DeepMind as part of its AI talent push. The offers, Altman said, included nine-figure compensation deals. Also Read: Meta Hits 1 Billion Monthly AI Users, Eyes Future With Subscriptions "They [Meta] started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said. "Like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that [compensation] per year." "I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," the OpenAI CEO added. He went on to say that OpenAI staffers believe the company has a better shot at achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) and that Meta's approach -- focusing on compensation over mission -- won't foster the kind of innovation necessary for success. "We're set up such that if we succeed at that and a lot of people on our research team believe we will or we have a good chance at it, then everybody will do great financially," Altman said. Subscribe to the Benzinga Tech Trends newsletter to get all the latest tech developments delivered to your inbox. Why It's Important: Despite offering million-dollar salaries, Meta is reportedly facing a talent exodus from its AI division, with employees increasingly moving to rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic. According to the 2025 SignalFire State of Talent Report, the demand for AI talent is surging, and companies are struggling to retain skilled workers. Anthropic stands out with an industry-leading 80% retention rate, DeepMind retains 78% of its staff, while OpenAI and Meta lag behind at 67% and 64%, respectively. Last week, it was announced that Meta has made a strategic minority investment in Scale AI, valuing the company at over $29 billion. As part of the partnership, Scale AI's founder Alexandr Wang will join Meta to support its AI efforts while remaining on Scale's board. Price Action: Meta shares have gained 16.35% so far this year. On Tuesday, the stock declined 0.70% during regular trading and slipped an additional 0.38% after hours, according to Benzinga Pro. Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings indicate a continued upward trend for META across short, medium and long-term periods. Further performance details can be found here. Photo Courtesy: Primakov on Shutterstock.com Check out more of Benzinga's Consumer Tech coverage by following this link. Read Next: Cathie Wood Dumps Palantir As Stock Touches Peak Prices, Bails On Soaring Flying-Taxi Maker Archer Aviation Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. GOOGAlphabet Inc$176.67-0.71%Stock Score Locked: Edge Members Only Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Unlock RankingsEdge RankingsMomentum37.01Growth88.25Quality88.40Value51.42Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewGOOGLAlphabet Inc$175.27-0.85%METAMeta Platforms Inc$694.59-1.07%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Meta Tried Luring OpenAI's Top Minds With Massive Paychecks, But Sam Altman 'Neglected To Mention That He's Countering Those Offers,' Says Andrew Bosworth - Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)

Meta Platforms, Inc.'s META billion-dollar AI hiring spree is heating up, but according to CTO Andrew Bosworth, OpenAI isn't letting go of its top talent without a serious fight. What Happened: In an interview with CNBC's Closing Bell Overtime on Friday, Meta's Bosworth revealed that OpenAI is actively countering Meta's lucrative job offers to retain its top employees. Earlier this week, in a podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that Meta was offering $100 million signing bonuses to poach OpenAI staff. However, Bosworth responded, saying, "Sam neglected to mention that he's countering those offers." Bosworth, a veteran at Meta since 2006, also spoke about the unprecedented demand for elite AI talent. "The market is setting a rate here for a level of talent which is really incredible and kind of unprecedented." Also Read: Meta Hits 1 Billion Monthly AI Users, Eyes Future With Subscriptions Why It's Important: Meta's aggressive recruitment strategy has included an investment in Scale AI and hiring its co-founder Alexandr Wang to help drive its superintelligence efforts. Previously, it was also reported that Meta had attempted to acquire Safe Superintelligence, the new startup co-founded by former OpenAI executive Ilya Sutskever. Although the acquisition didn't happen, Meta is now reportedly hiring Daniel Gross, along with former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, both of whom are involved in Safe Superintelligence through their venture firm, NFDG. Benzinga's Edge Stock Rankings indicate that META continues to trend upward across short, medium and long-term periods. More detailed performance insights are available here. Read Next: Cathie Wood Dumps Palantir As Stock Touches Peak Prices, Bails On Soaring Flying-Taxi Maker Archer Aviation Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo courtesy: jamesonwu1972 / Shutterstock.com METAMeta Platforms Inc$683.79-1.72%Stock Score Locked: Edge Members Only Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Unlock RankingsEdge RankingsMomentum85.25Growth92.62Quality86.76Value27.48Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewMarket News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Meta vs OpenAI : Inside the $100M AI Talent War

What happens when the visionary behind OpenAI decides to challenge not just his competitors but the very norms of an industry hurtling toward unprecedented change? Sam Altman, a name synonymous with the cutting edge of artificial intelligence, is making waves -- and not quietly. From calling out Meta's jaw-dropping $100 million signing bonuses to unveiling OpenAI's ambitions for humanoid robots and superintelligent AI, Altman's moves aren't just bold; they're reshaping the entire landscape of AI innovation. In a world where companies vie for dominance in AI supremacy, Altman's no-holds-barred approach raises a critical question: Is this the dawn of a new era of collaboration, or are we teetering on the edge of an AI arms race? Matthew Berman dives deep into the seismic shifts Altman is spearheading, from the highly anticipated GPT-5 to OpenAI's ventures into hardware and robotics. You'll discover how Meta's aggressive recruitment tactics are stirring controversy, why Altman believes AI could independently transform science within a decade, and what OpenAI's vision for human-centric AI devices could mean for our daily lives. But there's more beneath the surface -- rivalries with tech titans like Elon Musk, ethical dilemmas surrounding superintelligence, and the race to define the future of AI governance. As the stakes rise, so do the questions about who will lead, who will follow, and what it all means for humanity. Meta has emerged as a formidable competitor to OpenAI, employing aggressive recruitment tactics to attract top-tier AI talent. Altman disclosed that Meta has offered signing bonuses exceeding $100 million to lure researchers from OpenAI. While acknowledging Meta's financial resources, Altman criticized the company's approach, emphasizing that it prioritizes monetary incentives over a mission-driven culture. In contrast, OpenAI focuses on advancing AI responsibly, a vision that appeals to researchers who seek purpose and impact beyond financial rewards. This distinction highlights the growing divide in how leading AI organizations approach talent acquisition and organizational values. Altman envisions a future where AI will independently discover new scientific principles within the next 5 to 10 years, fundamentally transforming research across disciplines. Current AI models already enhance scientific productivity by analyzing complex datasets, simulating experiments, and generating hypotheses -- tasks that traditionally require advanced expertise. For instance, AI systems are accelerating breakthroughs in areas such as drug discovery, where they identify potential treatments faster than traditional methods, and climate modeling, where they analyze vast environmental data to predict changes. Altman foresees AI evolving from a supportive tool to an autonomous driver of new discoveries, reshaping the landscape of scientific innovation. OpenAI is preparing to launch GPT-5, the next iteration of its language model, by the summer of 2024. Altman described the vision of creating "omni-models" -- AI systems capable of seamlessly handling a wide range of tasks. These models aim to integrate functionalities such as text generation, image recognition, and problem-solving into a unified platform. By simplifying user interactions and enhancing AI's versatility, OpenAI seeks to make AI more accessible and impactful across industries. From healthcare, where AI could assist in diagnostics and patient care, to education, where it could personalize learning experiences, GPT-5 represents a step toward more comprehensive and adaptable AI solutions. OpenAI is expanding its focus beyond software, venturing into innovative hardware designs in collaboration with renowned designer Johnny Ive. The envisioned devices aim to prioritize portability and context-aware functionality, potentially replacing traditional screens with audio-visual interactions. This approach reflects OpenAI's commitment to creating intuitive, human-centric AI tools that integrate seamlessly into daily life. Such devices could adapt to user needs, provide real-time assistance, and operate naturally in diverse environments. In the realm of robotics, Altman outlined a long-term vision to develop humanoid robots within the next decade. These robots could incorporate advanced AI capabilities to perform complex tasks, such as assisting in healthcare settings or automating industrial processes. OpenAI is also exploring advancements in self-driving technology, aiming to reduce reliance on traditional sensors like LiDAR. By using AI's ability to process visual and contextual data, OpenAI hopes to create more efficient and cost-effective autonomous systems. These efforts underscore OpenAI's ambition to push the boundaries of AI applications in both physical and digital domains. Altman addressed the ongoing competition with Elon Musk, accusing Musk of using government influence to gain an advantage in the AI sector. He criticized Musk's "zero-sum" approach, which frames AI development as a winner-takes-all race. Despite these challenges, Altman reaffirmed OpenAI's commitment to collaboration and transparency, emphasizing the importance of shared progress in AI research. By fostering an environment of openness and ethical responsibility, OpenAI aims to ensure that advancements in AI benefit society as a whole, rather than being concentrated in the hands of a few. Altman defines superintelligence as AI systems capable of autonomous scientific discovery or significantly enhancing human capabilities in science. Achieving this milestone would represent a profound shift in the relationship between humans and technology, with far-reaching societal implications. Altman stressed the need for ethical governance to ensure that superintelligence is developed and deployed responsibly. He urged for careful oversight to mitigate risks, such as misuse or unintended consequences, while maximizing its potential to address global challenges. This vision underscores the importance of balancing innovation with accountability in the pursuit of advanced AI. OpenAI envisions a future where AI integrates seamlessly into everyday life through innovative hardware solutions. One concept involves a portable, context-aware device that interacts with users through audio-visual inputs rather than traditional screens. Such a device could adapt to user needs, provide real-time assistance, and operate intuitively in various environments. This vision aligns with OpenAI's broader mission to make AI more human-centric and accessible, bridging the gap between advanced technology and practical, everyday applications. Sam Altman's insights provide a compelling look at the dynamic and competitive nature of the AI industry. From Meta's recruitment strategies to the development of GPT-5 and the pursuit of superintelligence, OpenAI is navigating a complex landscape filled with both opportunities and challenges. By focusing on innovation, collaboration, and ethical responsibility, OpenAI aims to shape the future of AI in ways that benefit society while addressing the competitive pressures of a rapidly evolving field.

Altman Says Meta Offering $100 Million to Recruit OpenAI Staff | PYMNTS.com

The OpenAI CEO says that Meta was making "giant offers" of $100 million as it tries to catch up in the artificial intelligence (AI) race, the Financial Times (FT) reported Wednesday (June 18), citing Altman's comments on his brother's Uncapped podcast. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Altman said, noting that none of his "best people" had accepted an offer. "I think it is rational for them to keep trying. Their current AI efforts haven't worked as well as they've hoped and I respect [them] continuing to be aggressive." The FT report notes that Meta has been scrambling to attract researchers and engineers from rival tech companies for its goal of creating a "superintelligence" team to develop artificial general intelligence. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has personally been interviewing candidates for this team. So far, the company has been able to convince some AI experts to jump ship. For example, Jack Rae, a principal researcher at Google DeepMind, said last week he was moving to Meta. In addition, Meta has recently announced it would invest $15 billion in data-labeling startup Scale AI, with that company's co-founder and other employees expected to join Meta. Still, Meta has suffered several AI-related setbacks, the FT report noted. For example, there are claims that the company boosted performance metrics for the latest iteration of its Llama large language model (LLM). Meta has also faced online criticism for not sharing a full technical report to accompany the model, the report added. In other AI news, PYMNTS spoke recently with David's Bridal CEO Kelly Cook about that company's use of the technology to simplify wedding task management and vendor discovery. By combining tailored customer journeys with data-driven matchmaking tools, Cook said David's hopes to firm up its position as a dominant technology, media and retail presence in the wedding sector, backed by new growth capital intended to speed its digital transformation. "One-hundred percent of our emails are all AI generated now," Cook said in an interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster. "We have so much information between that and machine learning that I think we need to expand the talent base that is actually looking at it and learning from it, because you still need humans."

Meta Approached Multiple AI Startups for Potential Acquisition | PYMNTS.com

According to multiple news reports, these startups included the following: "The market is setting a rate here for a level of talent which is really incredible and kind of unprecedented in my 20-year career as a technology executive," Bosworth told CNBC. While most of the AI startups said no to Zuckerberg, he succeeded with Scale AI. Meta is investing $14.3 billion for a 49% stake and hiring away its CEO, Alexandr Wang, who will lead superintelligence efforts. Read more: OpenAI Winds Down Involvement With Scale AI Meta also will partially acquire NFDG; Friedman and Gross will join Meta and work under Wang. Zuckerberg is seeking to beef up its AI efforts after reportedly being frustrated by the pace of advancements of its flagship open-source large language model, Llama. The company already has one of the godfathers of AI, Yann LeCun, on staff as chief AI scientist. It also already has an AI research lab, Fundamental AI Research (FAIR). It's not yet clear how Wang will collaborate with LeCun. Wang is a 28-year-old MIT dropout who co-founded Scale AI, a company that provides high-quality annotated and curated data for AI models. The recruitment push comes at a time when competition for skilled AI talent has reached a fever pitch, with companies like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Microsoft and Anthropic vying for the same pool of geniuses. The renewed focus on AI talent comes as Meta looks to expand the capabilities of Llama and integrate advanced AI into its products. Meta's AI-driven features now power everything from content recommendations on Instagram to conversational assistants in WhatsApp. The company is also exploring AI agents to enhance customer service and commerce across its platforms. Read more: Meta Reorganizes GenAI Team to Accelerate Product Rollouts

Meta Offered $100M Signing Bonuses to OpenAI Engineers But No One Left, Claims Sam Altman

Is this the beginning of an AI talent war, or is OpenAI's mission still stronger than money? Meta is aggressively trying to build its superintelligence team, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is offering massive pay packages to top AI researchers. Meta has recently approached employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind. Some offers included signing bonuses worth more than $100 million. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has confirmed the reports on a podcast hosted by his brother, Jack Altman. He revealed that Meta made big offers to many OpenAI team members. "They started making giant offers, like $100 million signing bonuses, even more than that in total comp per year," Altman said.

Sam Altman says Meta tried to poach top OpenAI talent with $100M...

Meta Platforms has tried to lure top OpenAI talent with signing bonuses reaching $100 million and promises of even more generous annual compensation, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. "They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said on the "Uncapped" podcast released Tuesday. "You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year." Despite the aggressive recruitment efforts, Altman noted that "at least, so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that." The Post has sought comment from Meta and OpenAI. Altman framed the poaching attempts as part of a broader and intensifying battle for elite AI talent, likening the current climate to the free-agent frenzy of professional sports. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," he said. "Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things." The comments come at a pivotal moment in Meta's artificial intelligence strategy. The company recently invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI and hired the startup's founder, Alexandr Wang, to head up a new "superintelligence" division. The much-ballyhooed "acquihire" deal included a 49% stake in Scale AI and saw a handful of Wang's colleagues follow him to Meta. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly taken a personal interest in accelerating the company's AI capabilities. According to Bloomberg, Zuckerberg has directly participated in high-profile recruitment, including the recent hiring of Jack Rae, a leading researcher from DeepMind, Google's AI research lab. Altman, however, questioned whether throwing large sums of money at individuals creates the right environment for innovation. "I think that there's a lot of people, and Meta will be a new one, that are saying 'We're just going to try to copy OpenAI,'" he said. "That basically never works. You're always going to where your competitor was, and you don't build up a culture of learning what it's like to innovate." Meta has historically championed open-source AI, particularly with its Llama series of large language models. Yet the company has faced setbacks. The release of its newest flagship AI model was delayed amid internal concerns about its readiness, according to the Wall Street Journal. Zuckerberg's deep investment in AI infrastructure, however, has not gone unnoticed. Some industry observers argue that Meta is still playing a critical role in shaping the field. "They basically built the rails for open source AI development, and so much of what is happening in AI is being built on Meta," said Daniel Newman, CEO of Futurum Group, during an appearance on CNBC's Power Lunch on Tuesday. Meta's open-source approach has enabled a wide range of third-party developers to build applications on top of its models. Proponents argue this could ultimately offer a counterbalance to the more closed strategies of rivals like OpenAI. Meanwhile, OpenAI has been active on the M&A front as well. Last month, the company completed a $6.4 billion all-equity acquisition of io, a startup founded by former Apple design chief Jony Ive. Ive has since joined OpenAI, bringing with him a design-forward approach to AI hardware and interfaces.

Sam Altman says Meta offered $100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees

(Reuters) -OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said that Meta has offered his employees bonuses of $100 million to recruit them, as the tech giant seeks to ramp up its artificial intelligence strategy. The alleged attempts by Meta to hire OpenAI staffers are the latest signs of a frenzy to hire top engineers to develop AI models, and they come at a time when the Facebook owner is working on building its superintelligence unit to catch up with competitors. Competition for AI talent has reached a feverish pitch as superstar researchers are being courted like professional athletes on the belief that individual contributors can make or break companies. "They (Meta) started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team," Altman said on the Uncapped podcast that aired on Tuesday, hosted by his brother. "You know, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that (in) compensation per year." "At least, so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," Altman said. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours, and Reuters could not verify the information. "I've heard that Meta thinks of us as their biggest competitor," Altman said. His comments come just days after Meta invested $14.3 billion in data-labeling startup Scale AI, and hired its top boss, Alexandr Wang, to lead its new superintelligence team. Meta, once recognized as a leader in open-source AI models, has suffered from staff departures and has postponed the launches of new open-source AI models that could rival competitors like Google, China's DeepSeek and OpenAI. (Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)

Meta fails to poach OpenAI staff with $100M bonuses: CEO Sam Altman - VnExpress International

Facebook's parent company -- a competitor of OpenAI -- also offered "giant" annual salaries exceeding $100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the "Uncapped with Jack Altman" podcast released Tuesday. "It is crazy," Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. "I'm really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them up on that." The OpenAI cofounder said Meta had made the offers to "a lot of people on our team." Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The social media titan has invested billions of dollars in artificial intelligence technology amid fierce competition in the AI race with rivals OpenAI, Google and Microsoft. Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in January that the firm planned to invest at least $60 billion in AI this year, with ambitions to lead in the technology. Last week, Meta entered into a deal reportedly worth more than $10 billion with Scale AI, a company specializing in labeling data used in training artificial intelligence models. As part of the deal, company founder and CEO Alexandr Wang will join Meta to help with the tech giant's AI ambitions, including its work on superintelligence efforts. Comparing Meta to his company, Altman said on the podcast that "OpenAI has a much better shot at delivering on superintelligence." "I think the strategy of a ton of upfront guaranteed comp and that being the reason you tell someone to join... I don't think that's going to set up a great culture," the OpenAI boss added. According to U.S. media reports, Meta has also offered nine-figure annual salaries to Scale AI executives. "There's many things I respect about Meta as a company," said Altman. "But I don't think they're a company that's great at innovation."

At Meta, aggressiveness is part of the corporate culture

Meta has a plan, or at least a clear ambition: to become the leader in AI. To achieve this, the company is not afraid to open its checkbook or completely overhaul its strategy. This attitude is as aggressive as Mark Zuckerberg's recent makeover, and is starting to make waves in our columns. A new LLaMA 4 model called Behemoth, the secret takeover of Scale AI, $100m poaching offers for OpenAI engineers... The creator of Facebook seems ready to do anything to win the artificial intelligence race. After the bitter failure of his bet on NFTs, Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are throwing themselves headlong into a new technological race: that of artificial general intelligence (AGI). AGI is a hypothetical form of AI capable of understanding, learning, and acting like a human. Unlike current models, which are specialized in specific tasks, even the most advanced ones such as GPT-4 or Claude 3, AGI would be versatile, autonomous, and capable of generalized adaptation. In this quest for powerful but still theoretical AI, Meta is going all out. To date, it is the only major US company to offer an open-source model, a strategy that is also common in China. However, LLaMA is currently lagging behind competition, and Meta is well aware of this. To reverse the trend and assert its place in the AGI race, the group is betting everything on LLaMA 4 Behemoth, a very large model still in the training phase. It is the centerpiece of the Meta AI ecosystem, designed to integrate with the group's messaging services, augmented reality via connected glasses, and much more. Beyond this ambitious model, it is Meta's strategy that is particularly striking. The group has reportedly launched a branch dedicated to the development of super-intelligent AI (ASI), an AI capable of surpassing human intelligence, a concept previously reserved for science fiction. As with the development of the Metaverse, Mark Zuckerberg is not looking at the cost. Meta has acquired a 49% stake in Scale AI for $14.3bn. The goal is twofold: to circumvent regulators by staying below the 50% threshold and to recruit Alexandr Wang, founder of Scale AI, to head up the ASI division. And that's not all. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, claims that Meta has offered up to $100m to recruit certain engineers from his team. According to The Information, discussions are also underway between Meta, Nat Friedman (former CEO of GitHub) and Daniel Gross (co-founder of Cue, a startup specializing in chatbots for customer service). Meta even attempted earlier this year to buy Perplexity, the AI search platform that Apple is now eyeing, according to Bloomberg. After a period of calm in the AI sector, particularly following the DeepSeek earthquake at the beginning of the year, the big players are back in the spotlight. Among them, Meta is by far the best performer of the "magnificent seven" since the beginning of 2025 (+19%).

Meta offered $100 mn signing bonuses to poach OpenAI employees, says Sam Altman

He claims that none of OpenAI's "best people" have accepted the offers so far. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been trying hard to attract top AI researchers to his new 'superintelligence' team, and he's offering massive pay packages to do it. Meta has reportedly approached employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind with offers worth over $100 million, hoping to bring them onboard. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has now confirmed those reports on a podcast hosted by his brother Jack Altman and claimed that Meta's efforts haven't really worked. Also, he took the opportunity to fire a few more shots at Meta. Altman revealed that Meta offered huge financial incentives, like $100 million signing bonuses, to OpenAI employees, but so far, none of OpenAI's "best people" have accepted the offers. "They started making these like giant offers to, you know, a lot of people on our team, like $100 million signing bonuses, more than that comp per year," Altman said. "I'm really happy that at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that." Also read: OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT image generation tool to WhatsApp: Here's how you can use it Altman believes it's OpenAI's commitment to its mission and drive for innovation that gives it an edge. "I think that people sort of look at the two paths and say, all right, OpenAI has got a really good shot, a much better shot at actually delivering on super intelligence, and also may eventually be the more valuable company," Altman explained. He also criticised Meta's approach to hiring. "I think the strategy of a ton of upfront guaranteed comp, and that being the reason you tell someone to join... I don't think that's going to set up a great culture," he said. Although Altman acknowledged that there are "many things I respect about Meta as a company," he added, "I don't think they're a company that's great at innovation." For now, it seems like Meta's high-paying offers aren't enough to sway OpenAI's top employees.