Meta’s push to grab AI talent from OpenAI has turned into one of Silicon Valley’s biggest hiring wars. Mark Zuckerberg has not held back. He’s stacked his new Meta Superintelligence Lab with elite researchers, many of them fresh from OpenAI’s ranks.
Shengjia Zhao, Jiahui Yu, Hongyu Ren and Shuchao Bi were among the latest to jump ship. Their OpenAI Slack accounts went dark overnight. “I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something,” Mark Chen, OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer, wrote in a memo obtained by WIRED.
‘Giant offers’ and counter moves
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman says Meta’s playbook is clear: jaw-dropping offers. On his brother’s podcast, Altman said, “They’ve started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team.” He claimed Meta has dangled signing bonuses as high as $100 million. “I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on that,” Altman said.
Inside OpenAI, that loyalty is gold. Chen promised staff, “Please trust that we haven’t been sitting idly by.” The company is revising pay to match Meta’s push, but leans on its mission as the stronger hook. Altman said bluntly, “Meta’s current AI efforts have not worked as well as they hoped. It’s not enough to catch up—you have to actually innovate.”
Zuckerberg’s big bet
Meta’s boss is betting big. In an internal memo seen by CNBC, Zuckerberg wrote, “Developing superintelligence is coming into sight. I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity.” He named Alexandr Wang, former Scale AI CEO, as Meta’s Chief AI Officer to lead the new lab, alongside ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.
Meta’s new team now includes ex-Google, DeepMind, and Anthropic engineers too. Some, like Jack Rae and Pei Sun, helped build the Gemini models. Others like Bi and Zhao shaped GPT-4o and other high-profile projects at OpenAI.
Zuckerberg underlined Meta’s advantage: compute power, global reach, and a “bold” culture. He promised a parallel path to the next generation of open-source AI models. His goal? “Personal superintelligence for everyone.”
Big money, bigger risks
It’s not all smooth. Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth admitted the stakes are unlike anything he’s seen in two decades. “The market is setting a rate here for a level of talent which is really incredible and kind of unprecedented,” Bosworth told CNBC.
But when companies pay out huge sums to a few, tension can spread. Some Meta insiders worry the rush for big names could backfire if egos clash or projects stall. After all, open-sourcing Llama helped Meta win fans, but it has yet to rival ChatGPT’s impact.
One prize, few players
At the heart of this fight is a tiny circle of AI experts. Everyone wants them—Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI. That scarcity has turned AI talent into a commodity worth billions.
Meta’s failed attempt to buy Safe Superintelligence, the startup founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, shows how far companies will go to own the next breakthrough. When that didn’t work, Zuckerberg turned to fresh hires instead.
For now, the battle lines are drawn. Meta wants scale and speed. OpenAI wants loyalty and purpose. One side flashes cash. The other promises mission.
The AI war is just beginning
With billions at stake, these talent raids will not stop soon. Some worry the frenzy could fracture teams or inflate costs beyond reason. But for now, Zuckerberg is clear: he wants Meta at the front of AI’s next age.
“We’re still forming this group and we’ll ask several people across the AI org to join this lab as well,” Zuckerberg wrote to staff. “I’m optimistic that this new influx of talent… will set us up to deliver on the promise of personal superintelligence for everyone.”
In this race, money talks. But culture still whispers in the background—just loud enough to keep OpenAI’s best from walking out the door.
Shengjia Zhao, Jiahui Yu, Hongyu Ren and Shuchao Bi were among the latest to jump ship. Their OpenAI Slack accounts went dark overnight. “I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something,” Mark Chen, OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer, wrote in a memo obtained by WIRED.
‘Giant offers’ and counter moves
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman says Meta’s playbook is clear: jaw-dropping offers. On his brother’s podcast, Altman said, “They’ve started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team.” He claimed Meta has dangled signing bonuses as high as $100 million. “I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on that,” Altman said.
Inside OpenAI, that loyalty is gold. Chen promised staff, “Please trust that we haven’t been sitting idly by.” The company is revising pay to match Meta’s push, but leans on its mission as the stronger hook. Altman said bluntly, “Meta’s current AI efforts have not worked as well as they hoped. It’s not enough to catch up—you have to actually innovate.”
Zuckerberg’s big bet
Meta’s boss is betting big. In an internal memo seen by CNBC, Zuckerberg wrote, “Developing superintelligence is coming into sight. I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity.” He named Alexandr Wang, former Scale AI CEO, as Meta’s Chief AI Officer to lead the new lab, alongside ex-GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.
Meta’s new team now includes ex-Google, DeepMind, and Anthropic engineers too. Some, like Jack Rae and Pei Sun, helped build the Gemini models. Others like Bi and Zhao shaped GPT-4o and other high-profile projects at OpenAI.
Zuckerberg underlined Meta’s advantage: compute power, global reach, and a “bold” culture. He promised a parallel path to the next generation of open-source AI models. His goal? “Personal superintelligence for everyone.”
Big money, bigger risks
It’s not all smooth. Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth admitted the stakes are unlike anything he’s seen in two decades. “The market is setting a rate here for a level of talent which is really incredible and kind of unprecedented,” Bosworth told CNBC.
But when companies pay out huge sums to a few, tension can spread. Some Meta insiders worry the rush for big names could backfire if egos clash or projects stall. After all, open-sourcing Llama helped Meta win fans, but it has yet to rival ChatGPT’s impact.
One prize, few players
At the heart of this fight is a tiny circle of AI experts. Everyone wants them—Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI. That scarcity has turned AI talent into a commodity worth billions.
Meta’s failed attempt to buy Safe Superintelligence, the startup founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, shows how far companies will go to own the next breakthrough. When that didn’t work, Zuckerberg turned to fresh hires instead.
For now, the battle lines are drawn. Meta wants scale and speed. OpenAI wants loyalty and purpose. One side flashes cash. The other promises mission.
The AI war is just beginning
With billions at stake, these talent raids will not stop soon. Some worry the frenzy could fracture teams or inflate costs beyond reason. But for now, Zuckerberg is clear: he wants Meta at the front of AI’s next age.
“We’re still forming this group and we’ll ask several people across the AI org to join this lab as well,” Zuckerberg wrote to staff. “I’m optimistic that this new influx of talent… will set us up to deliver on the promise of personal superintelligence for everyone.”
In this race, money talks. But culture still whispers in the background—just loud enough to keep OpenAI’s best from walking out the door.
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