Meta's Billion-Dollar AI Talent Hunt: Anthropic and Abel Founders Reveal Massive Poaching Attempts

Abel founder claims Meta offered $1.25 billion over four years to AI hire -- 'person still said no' despite equivalent of $312 million yearly salary

Perhaps not a surprising figure, given the talk of $100 million signing bonuses. Abel founder and enfant terrible of the algorithmic age, Daniel Francis, is incredulous at the remuneration offers being punted by the likes of Meta. Earlier today, Daniel told his throng of social media followers that Meta had offered a potential hire $1.25 billion. The sum was for a four-year stint, admittedly. Despite the 10-figure lure, which would mean over $300 million a year, the potential hire didn't take the bait. The above Tweet is actually an update to one Daniel floated into the X-abyss this weekend, suggesting that Meta was fishing for a high-caliber AI auteur armed with a $1 billion incentive. Whatever the case, "Person said no, btw," Daniel added, without embellishment. To his rhetorical question about "what the hell is going on," Daniel didn't take too long to give one of his followers an answer, though. When someone raised the obvious valuation comparison, where hires are starting to attract 'IP style money,' Daniel said, "IP is in people's heads [right now]." Francis, whose startup uses AI to build police reports from body cam footage and dispatch call data, shot to internet notoriety in 2023 when he pretended to be a disgruntled Twitter worker fired by Elon Musk. After fooling multiple outlets into believing his story, he was hired by Musk to join the company. The headlining employment contract worth $1.25 billion isn't unusual, according to several posters who replied to Daniel. AI researcher Roon, who is believed to have previously worked at OpenAI, stated that he's heard of higher offers being made. "It's not that crazy when you think of it like an acquihire," he stated, in an explanation which dovetails with Daniel's highlighting of valuable IP being in folk's heads in the current AI era. After another seeming serious contribution, attempting to confirm that "The highest you've heard is regular to me," the thread began to turn into something of a farce. Posters moved on to trying to outdo each other with tales of infinite wealth, only matched by their levels of silliness. Though we must take some of the claims above with a dash of salt, there are undoubtedly some extremely lucrative employment contracts being offered to established and rising AI execs. A case of extreme remuneration in the AI field came straight from the CEO's mouth last month. In June, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta was attempting to swipe OpenAI technical staff with $100 million signing bonuses. "I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," asserted Altman.

Anthropic Co-Founder Says Meta Attempted The Same Multi-Million-Dollar Tactic To Lure His Employees, Says He Does Not Blame Anyone Who Took Those Offers, But Believes His Team Is 'Mission-Oriented'

Mega-million-dollar offers is Meta's trump card for luring exceptional talent to work on its Superintelligence Labs, with a previous employee list revealing that out of 44 people working in this division, 40 percent were formerly working at OpenAI. Naturally, the social media behemoth would leave no stone unturned as it prowls around looking to snare employees with lucrative offers, and as you can guess, Anthropic was not left out. Fortunately, the company behind Claude reportedly has people who believe in the mission rather than those looking to pocket mammoth paydays, and the co-founder explains that while he cannot blame anyone for entertaining those offers, some employees have different priorities than others. In an episode of Lenny's Podcast, Benjamin Mann, the co-founder of Anthropic, who left his job at OpenAI to pursue his own startup, says that various people have 'different life circumstances' when referring to what their preference lies in working for AI firms. He also believes that the $100 million signing bonuses offered by Meta are real, and says that the amount is low compared to the value being made. "I'm pretty sure it's real. To pay individuals like $100 million over a four-year package, that's actually pretty cheap compared to the value created for the business. We're just in an unprecedented era of scale, and it's only going to get crazier." As for why Antropic employees have yet to jump ship to Meta, Mann believes that the people currently stationed there are mission-oriented and they have given priority to how the company affects the future of humanity over how much money they can make. "I think we've been maybe much less affected than many of the other companies in the space because people here are so mission-oriented. They get these offers and then they say, 'Well, of course I'm not going to leave because my best case scenario at Meta is that we make money, and my best case at Anthropic is we affect the future of humanity." As reported by Business Insider, Mann and other individuals left OpenAI in 2020 to start Anthropic because 'safety wasn't the top priority there.' Meta has largely been successful with its poaching tactics, as it managed to recruit Apple's head of foundation models for a nice $200 million signing bonus. Then again, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes that this approach will create the wrong company culture.