AI: Meta's AI Talent Gold Rush more 'Sand in the Gears' of AI Industry. RTZ #770

I discussed yesterday how Meta’s White Hot AI Talent Race, against OpenAI et al, is an important mid-year shift in this AI Tech Wave for the industry. Led personally by founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it changes the AI Table Stakes going forward beyond the AI data center Capex rush of the last year and a half.

Although the annual talent dollars amount to a few billion dollars vs the hundreds of billions per year in the AI data center ‘Table Stakes’ race, the impact is likely to almost as big in the race to innovate up and down at Scale across the AI Tech Stack. This year and beyond.

We’ve not seen this scale of talent gold rush in most prior tech waves. The closest was likely the Mobile tech wave in the few years after the 2007 debut of the Apple iPhone, iconically presented by Steve Jobs.

That wave ironically also involved Meta, when their 2012 IPO debut was impacted by the mainstream internet user transition from the desktop to mobile over the next few years. Meta saw its new stock slump by over 50%. It didn’t rebound and return before to its $38 IPO price until 16 months later.

Then too, Mark Zuckerberg led the company’s aggressive transition to mobile users and advertisers. And never looked back. Founder mode indeed, as Paul Graham of YCombinator (YC) fame has described.

This time too feels like that moment, accelerated.

Mark Zuckerberg with his opening moves, seems determined to reorient Meta’s core services to the new AI North Star, ‘Superintelligence’, however ultimately defined and determined. Wherever it may lead.

He’s done this before this AI Tech Wave, when he first launched Meta’s Open Source initiatives with Llama LLM AIs two years ago.

Throwing ‘sand in the gears’ of his tech competitors, who were all planning to charge for their LLM AIs. Accelerating those initiatives last year.

And then seeing a reversal in open source LLMs with DeepSeek of China and other competitors from over there.

This AI acqui-hiring and hiring chapter is but a continuation of Zuckerberg to be aggressive at key turns.

And the first big number hires are likely just the opening salvo. The ‘AI Dream Team’ assembly just getting started.

OpenAI and others are going to have to manage through this Meta wave. Despite the difficult internal and external management challenges.

As OpenAI founder/CEO describes in the Wired’s “Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent-Poaching Spree: ‘Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries’”:

“OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is hitting back at Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent AI talent-poaching spree. In a full-throated response sent to OpenAI researchers Monday evening and obtained by WIRED, Altman made his pitch for why staying at OpenAI is the only answer for those looking to build artificial general intelligence, hinting that the company is evaluating compensation for the entire research organization.”

“He also dismissed Meta’s recruiting efforts, saying what the company is doing could lead to deep cultural problems down the road.”

““We have gone from some nerds in the corner to the most interesting people in the tech industry (at least),” he wrote on Slack. “AI Twitter is toxic; Meta is acting in a way that feels somewhat distasteful; I assume things will get even crazier in the future. After I got fired and came back I said that was not the craziest thing that would happen in OpenAl history; certainly neither is this.”

This was after Zuckerberg laid out his AI game plan going forward:

“The news comes on the heels of a major announcement from Zuckerberg. On Monday, the Meta CEO sent a memo to staff introducing the company’s new superintelligence team, which will be helmed by Alexandr Wang, formerly of Scale AI, and Nat Friedman, who previously led GitHub. The list of new hires also included a number of people from OpenAI, including Shengjia Zhao, Shuchao Bi, Jiahui Yu, and Hongyu Ren. OpenAI’s chief research officer, Mark Chen, told staff that it felt like “someone has broken into our home and stolen something.”

Sam Altman tried to make the best of it both inside and out:

“Altman struck a different tone about the departures in his note on Monday.”

“Meta has gotten a few great people for sure, but on the whole, it is hard to overstate how much they didn’t get their top people and had to go quite far down their list; they have been trying to recruit people for a super long time, and I’ve lost track of how many people from here they’ve tried to get to be their Chief Scientist,” he wrote. “I am proud of how mission-oriented our industry is as a whole; of course there will always be some mercenaries.”

And then the signature quote against his latest ‘arch-nemesis’, for whom the future does seem bright:

“He added that “Missionaries will beat mercenaries” and noted that OpenAI is assessing compensation for the entire research organization. “I believe there is much, much more upside to OpenAl stock than Meta stock,” he wrote. “But I think it’s important that huge upside comes after huge success; what Meta is doing will, in my opinion, lead to very deep cultural problems. We will have more to share about this soon but it’s very important to me we do it fairly and not just for people who Meta happened to target.”

And then of course, the case to be made internally:

“Altman then made his pitch for people to remain at OpenAI. “I have never been more confident in our research roadmap,” he wrote. “We are making an unprecedented bet on compute, but I love that we are doing it and I’m confident we will make good use of it. Most importantly of all, I think we have the most special team and culture in the world. We have work to do to improve our culture for sure; we have been through insane hypergrowth. But we have the core right in a way that I don’t think anyone else quite does, and I’m confident we can fix the problems.”

And the north star of OpenAI’s AGI goals.

And the interim array of AI products and services of many types, led by his new ‘CEO of Applications’, Fidji Simo.

“And maybe more importantly than that, we actually care about building AGI in a good way,” he added. “Other companies care more about this as an instrumental goal to some other mission. But this is our top thing, and always will be. Long after Meta has moved on to their next flavor of the week, or defending their social moat, we will be here, day after day, year after year, figuring out how to do what we do better than anyone else. A lot of other efforts will rise and fall too.”

The industry debate of course rages on about the pros and cons of each culture.

“A number of high-ranking employees who’ve worked at Meta followed up in Slack with their own stories about why OpenAI’s culture is superior. “[T]hey constantly rotate their top focus,” wrote one. Another said: “Yes we’re quirky and weird, but that’s what makes this place a magical cradle of innovation,” wrote one. “OpenAI is weird in the most magical way. We contain multitudes.”

And Meta itself will have to digest this new influx of AI ‘superstars’. And how they work with their existing AI stars, large and small. Like their AI Scientist Yann LeCun and the new AI head Alexandr Wang.

And importantly figure out why are they focused on AI Superintelligence given the core realities of their ad-driven media platforms serving billions already around the world.

Of course the ripple effects of Meta’s moves go far beyond, and not just at the top layers of AI research talent globally. Rank and file AI talent across the industry will also likely benefit, as I discussed with my AI Ramblings Gen Z co-host Neal Makwana. Here’s his thoughts on how his young peers are viewing the moves. (Also worth reading his latest piece on ‘AI eating GUIs’, which will need copious amounts of AI talent).

Meta’s moves will be felt up and down the AI ranks at tech companies in the US and overseas. And of course at regular companies seeking AI talent at all levels to do cool AI things in this AI Tech Wave.

But big waves inevitably settle over time. And the waters start to ebb and flow normally again. Stay tuned.

(NOTE: The discussions here are for information purposes only, and not meant as investment advice at any time. Thanks for joining us here)