AI Talent Wars Bring Unprecedented Pay Packages as Meta Throws Down
"Pascal's wager" is the play of the moment.
Paid subscribers get access to our in-depth story on compensation for top AI execs, including a look at how PhD candidates are fielding offers and how many people might be able to cash in. Subscribe to get the full details, along with all our fresh reporting on the AI arms race.
A couple months ago a senior leader from Meta reached out to an executive at a multibillion-dollar tech company to entice him to join their AI team.
“Your name was on a list we put together of leading people in the AI sector,” the Meta executive said before launching into the company’s AI product vision. The recipient demurred. The Meta representative tried one last push: the compensation is exceptional, beyond what you may think.
He ultimately turned down Meta’s overture, he told me. But as the last two weeks of dealmaking have made clear, it was a harbinger of things to come.
Sam Altman this week got attention — along with plenty of skeptical snickering — with his humble-brag that Meta has been dangling $100 million offers to lure away star OpenAI researchers, without success.
Whether or not that was an exaggeration, it now seems clear that Meta’s promises of riches were real. Mark Zuckerberg has been on a tear, willing to dig deep into the company’s infinite pockets to score AI talent.
The effect has been to turn what was already an overheated market for the most elite talent into a full-on recruiting frenzy.
People with experience building generative AI models have been getting offers from Meta that ranged from $8 million over four years to an astonishing $20 million a year, two different sources told me. The offers are largely in stock, they said.