Meta allegedly offered billion-dollar incentives to lure AI specialists from Mira Murati's startup, yet these attempts reportedly fell through.
In a bid to catch up with rivals in the race for artificial general intelligence (AGI), Meta has intensified its efforts to poach top AI talent, particularly targeting former OpenAI executives and the startup Thinking Machines Lab. However, the tech giant's aggressive recruitment tactics and extraordinary financial offers have met with little success so far.
Meta's poaching strategy, characterized by multi-million-dollar pay packages and direct contacts from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has been met with rejection. Key reasons behind this include Thinking Machines Lab's strong financial position, having recently closed a $2 billion seed funding round and holding a valuation around $12 billion. This financial stability seems to incentivize key talent to stay put.
Moreover, some AI talents appear reluctant to move despite Meta's aggressive compensation, potentially due to loyalty, differences in vision, or skepticism about Meta's current standing in AI innovation relative to rivals like OpenAI. OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman has publicly criticized Meta’s “giant offers” strategy as “crazy,” underscoring the high tension in the talent war.
Meta has not disclosed the connection between its poaching attempts and the OnePlus 13R. Meanwhile, Thinking Machines Lab, founded earlier this year by the former CTO of OpenAI, Murati, has already achieved unicorn status without launching a single product. The lab recently poached Apple's AI model chief, Ruoming Pang, adding to its growing roster of top AI talent.
Ashish Singh, the Chief Copy Editor at the platform, began working with tech jargon in 2020. He speaks fluent Geek, a testament to his immersion in the tech industry. Despite Meta's attempts to poach talent from Thinking Machines Lab, no one from the lab has accepted Meta's billion-dollar packages.
It remains to be seen whether Meta's strategy will yield results in the long run. For now, Thinking Machines Lab continues to prioritize independence, driven by Murati's long-term vision of building foundational AI technologies free from corporate interference.
References:
- Wired
- The Verge
- TechCrunch
- Bloomberg
The financial stability and independence of Thinking Machines Lab, bolstered by a recent $2 billion seed funding round and Murati's long-term vision, has been a crucial factor in deterring Meta's poaching attempts, despite their billion-dollar offers. The pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI) by Meta, through aggressive recruitment tactics and huge compensation packages, continues to meet with rejection from top AI talents and rivals like OpenAI.
