Meta has made significant investments in its new superintelligence lab, offering top research talent pay packages of up to $300 million over four years. According to sources, the company has made at least 10 high offers to OpenAI staffers, with some reports suggesting that a single researcher was pitched on a chief scientist role but turned it down.
The pay packages include equity, with the first year’s stock vesting immediately. One OpenAI staffer said they were considering joining Meta due to the substantial offer, but believed their impact would be greater at OpenAI. Meanwhile, a senior engineer at Meta confirmed their salary was around $850,000 per year, significantly lower than some of the packages currently on offer.
Meta’s leadership has acknowledged that not everyone is getting a $100 million offer, and Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer, downplayed the significance of the figure during a Q&A with employees. The company has hired at least seven OpenAI staffers for its new superintelligence team, prompting OpenAI’s chief research officer to express concern over what he described as “someone breaking into our home.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman responded by slamming Meta’s poaching attempts and hinting that the company is recalibrating its own compensation packages. As a point of comparison, Satya Nadella and Dara Khosrowshahi, CEOs of Microsoft and Uber respectively, received significantly lower compensation in 2024.
The new superintelligence lab, led by Alexandr Wang and Nat Friedman, will focus on cutting-edge AI research without specifically naming a chief scientist or chief research officer. The move marks another significant investment in the AI industry, where access to resources is highly competitive.
Source: https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-meta-offer-top-ai-talent-300-million