OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has confirmed that Meta made extravagant compensation offers to attract AI specialists from his team. However, these efforts have largely been unsuccessful.
Altman discussed this during a podcast with his brother, Jack Altman. According to him, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been trying to recruit prominent researchers from OpenAI and Google DeepMind for Meta’s newly formed "superintelligence" team. In some cases, these specialists were offered salaries and signing bonuses exceeding $100 million per year.
“Meta has made huge offers to many people on our team — $100 million signing bonuses, very high annual salaries, and so on. But I’m glad that none of our key team members have accepted these offers,” Altman said.
He explained that employees chose to stay because they believe OpenAI has a higher chance of succeeding in developing artificial general intelligence (AGI). Altman also noted that while Meta focuses heavily on high salaries, it may struggle to build a strong culture due to less emphasis on mission and purpose.
Reports indicate that Meta attempted to recruit OpenAI’s lead researcher Noam Brown and one of Google DeepMind’s senior leaders, Koray Kavukcuoglu, but both attempts failed.
Altman also criticized Meta’s innovation efforts:
“Meta’s work in AI has not been as successful as they hoped. There are things about Meta that I respect, but I don’t think they are a company strong in innovation.”
He emphasized that companies need to truly innovate—not just catch up—to stay ahead in AI.
Additionally, Altman revealed that OpenAI is developing a new AI-powered social media platform that will deliver personalized feeds based on users’ interests. This approach differs from traditional algorithm-driven social networks and could directly compete with Meta’s existing platforms.
Meta is also working on an AI-driven social network through its Meta AI app, but some users have expressed confusion and concerns over privacy risks linked to the app.
In summary, the AI race is as much about technology as it is about talent acquisition. The competition between Sam Altman’s OpenAI and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is expected to intensify in the coming months, especially with OpenAI’s anticipated release of a new model.
