Zuckerberg’s $100M AI Hiring Push Faces Resistance, Says OpenAI’s Altman
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is aggressively pursuing top AI researchers for his newly formed superintelligence team, reportedly offering compensation packages that exceed $100 million. However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims that Meta’s lavish offers have largely been unsuccessful.
In a recent podcast conversation with his brother, Jack Altman, the OpenAI chief acknowledged the massive financial incentives being offered by Meta. “They’ve started making these giant offers… $100 million signing bonuses, more than that in compensation per year,” Altman said. “I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have taken him up on that.”
Altman argued that OpenAI’s mission-driven culture holds greater appeal for top talent than Meta’s high salaries. He also criticized Meta’s innovation track record, stating, “I don’t think they’re a company that’s great at innovation.”
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As Meta accelerates its push toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), the company has turned to high-profile poaching efforts. Alexandr Wang, former CEO of Scale AI, now leads Meta’s AI superintelligence team. Though Meta extended offers to key figures like OpenAI researcher Noam Brown and Google DeepMind executive Koray Kavukcuoglu, both reportedly declined. Some successful hires include DeepMind’s Jack Rae and Johan Schalkwyk from Sesame AI.
Meta’s AI expansion includes a 49% stake in Wang’s former company, Scale AI, as it competes with OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic. Meanwhile, Altman hinted at a bold new direction for OpenAI: a potential AI-powered social media platform focused on advanced content personalization. Meta is also testing similar ideas through its Meta AI app, though early feedback indicates user confusion and a bumpy rollout.
