OpenAI boss Sam Altman says members of his staff have received “giant offers” from rival tech company Meta.
The tech chief has revealed that Meta – which owns platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – is attempting to lure top members of his team with $100 million “signing bonuses”.
Altman said on his brother Jack’s Uncapped podcast: “They started making giant offers to a lot of people on our team. You know, like $100 million signing bonuses.”
The entrepreneur revealed that Meta’s attempts to tempt his best staff to jump ship have been unsuccessful thus far.
Altman said: “None of our best people have decided to take them up on that.”
Meta is attempting to boost the artificial intelligence (AI) aspect of its business and recently spent $14 billion (£10.4 billion) to buy 49 per cent of the startup Scale AI but their approach to the tech has been criticized by Altman.
He said: “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. I think we understand a lot of things they don’t.”
Meta have not commented on Altman’s claims but industry expert Indranil Bandyopadhyay claims that the figures reflect the belief in the tech world that a “handful of elite researchers and engineers can provide a decisive competitive advantage”.
The principal analyst at Forrester says that talent acquisition in the AI industry is a “high-risk, high-reward gamble”.
He told the BBC: “Whether this intense level of investment is sustainable remains to be seen, but for now, the AI gold rush continues at a breakneck pace, with talent at its most precious and fiercely contested resource.”
