Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta offered employees of rival OpenAI signing bonuses of $100 million to switch companies, according to Open AI CEO Sam Altman.
“They started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team,” Altman said Tuesday on the “Uncapped” podcast hosted by his brother Jack. “You know, like $100 million signing bonuses.”
Altman said that Meta’s attempts to poach his staff have failed, at least so far.
“None of our best people have decided to take them up on that,” Altman said.
Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The OpenAI CEO criticized Meta, saying that “their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they have hoped and I respect being aggressive and continuing to try new things.”
“There’s many things I respect about Meta as a company, but I don’t think they’re a company that’s great at innovation,” Altman continued. “I think we understand a lot of things they don’t.”
The revelation comes amid reports that Zuckerberg is personally recruiting for a new team to achieve “superintelligence” machines that are capable of surpassing human capabilities.
Zuckerberg is reportedly so frustrated with Meta’s efforts in the AI space that he has taken it upon himself to meet with experts in the field at his homes and has reportedly shifted the layout of the company’s Menlo Park headquarters to put the new team near his office, according to Bloomberg and the New York Times.
Last week, Meta announced a $14.3 billion investment for a 49% stake in Scale AI to help Zuckerberg’s ambitions, including the hiring of the 28-year-old founder and CEO Alexandr Wang. Some employees from Scale AI will join Meta as part of the deal.
Over the past few years, Zuckerberg has pushed increasingly further into repositioning Meta into an AI powerhouse with mixed success. His intensity in the area has sharpened following the leaps in advancement from OpenAI, a rival that raised tens of billions of dollars in funding.
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