Meta hires three senior OpenAI researchers to boost its superintelligence team, offering huge pay after a weak AI model launch and rising talent competition
Meta has recently secured three OpenAI researchers, despite rival Sam Altman’s public ridicule of Mark Zuckerberg’s extravagant recruiting practices, in the ongoing competition for the best AI talent.
The WSJ reports that Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, who established OpenAI’s Zurich office, have joined Meta’s superintelligence team, marking the latest victory in Zuckerberg’s widely-reported recruiting campaign. This development suggests that Zuckerberg’s strategies may be effective.
Zuckerberg has been offering compensation packages exceeding $100 million to attract top talent from OpenAI, as Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, first disclosed in a recent podcast with his sibling, Jack.
The Journal subsequently reported that Zuckerberg had been personally WhatsApping hundreds of top AI researchers, coordinating targets through his “Recruiting Party 🎉” chat, before hosting dinners at his residences in Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe.
Mixed results are being achieved through the implementation of the strategy. Alexandr Wang, the CEO of Scale AI, was recently obtained by Zuckerberg through a $14 billion investment, rendering the 28-year-old one of the most expensive recruits in the technical sector.
However, according to the Wall Street Journal, the Meta CEO has been unable to achieve a more significant goal. This includes OpenAI co-founders Ilya Sutskever and John Schulman, who have since co-founded newer ventures.
Altman described Zuckerberg’s seduction campaign in that podcast as follows:
“I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on [those offers].”
