Meta and OpenAI
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta made aggressive attempts to poach top talent from his company, offering compensation packages reaching $100 million. Speaking on the "Uncapped with Jack Altman" podcast, Sam said several OpenAI employees were approached with nine-figure annual salary offers, but none accepted.
Altman described Meta’s approach as “insane,” highlighting his satisfaction that OpenAI’s best engineers remained loyal. “Many of our top people received those offers,” he noted, adding that the offers were directed at a wide portion of their AI team.
Meta, which owns Facebook, has not responded to requests for comment.
Meta is heavily investing in AI development, committing at least $60 billion this year, according to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Last week, the tech giant struck a deal worth over $10 billion with Scale AI, a data-labeling company used for training AI models.
As part of that deal, Scale AI’s founder and CEO, Alexandr Wang, is set to join Meta to help drive the company’s ambitions toward developing superintelligence.
Despite Meta’s resources, Altman believes OpenAI has a better shot at achieving artificial superintelligence. He also criticized Meta's hiring strategy, stating that offering large, guaranteed salaries from the start doesn’t foster a productive company culture.
Media reports suggest that Meta made similar nine-figure compensation offers to top Scale AI executives as well.
Altman closed by acknowledging Meta’s accomplishments but added, “It’s not a company renowned for genuine innovation.”
