Sam Altman's figures are staggering
He claims that several OpenAI employees have received offers from Meta, with packages exceeding $100 million. “Some have been offered signing bonuses of $25 million to $100 million, and total compensation that can reach or exceed this amount each year,” he explains. For a senior engineer or researcher, these amounts are unprecedented in the tech industry, even in Silicon Valley where salaries are already stratospheric.
These offers are said to come from Meta's new AI department, the “superintelligence” laboratory launching with great fanfare in early 2024, which Mark Zuckerberg wants to position as a spearhead against OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google DeepMind. The stated ambition: to build artificial general intelligence (AGI) in the next five years, by mobilizing the best global talent... and the financial resources that go with it.
Meta is stepping up its game after recruiting the CEO of Scale AI
This offensive comes amid a major restructuring of the sector's key players. Meta recently pulled off a major coup by recruiting Alexandr Wang, CEO of Scale AI, a key company in training AI models. This major acquisition clearly marked a turning point: since then, Meta has made no secret of its aggressive methods for attracting the most sought-after profiles. At the same time, the group is reportedly investing between $14 and $15 billion per year in its AI strategy, according to estimates from the Financial Times.
For Sam Altman, these astronomical sums raise questions about the corporate culture they reflect. He admits that these offers are tempting, but points out that none of OpenAI's most critical profiles have yet succumbed to Menlo Park's lure. "Our best people have stayed, and I'm proud of the culture we've built. We can't compete financially with these offers, but people stay because they believe in our mission," he said.
The episode illustrates the extent to which the artificial intelligence sector has become a fierce battleground, where every highly qualified individual is courted like a top-level football player. Large corporations no longer hesitate to spend sums worthy of venture capital to capture a few strategic minds.
These dynamics risk reinforcing the imbalances between tech giants, capable of spending billions for a few lines of code, and other players, startups, university laboratories, or non-profit organizations, which are struggling to keep up.
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