The $100 million wage package is not the only Shohei Ohtanis and Cristiano Ronaldos of the world. In Silicon Valley, nine-figure paydays are reportedly rising to the world's top talent as the competition to own AI enters a new, frenzy stage.
Meta is reporting this week on what Openai researchers call its Superintelligence Lab, with a high offer of up to $300 million over four years. Sam Altman claimed in June that Open Rye workers were offered a $100 million signature bonus to jump onto the ship. Meta spokesman Andy Stone called the “false” news of the reported salary and said “the size and structure of these compensation packages are misrepresented everywhere.”
Whatever the actual figures are, it appears that the selected researchers will be able to see bank account balances above CEOs, comparable to CEOs of other major technology companies. And they overtake other tech workers with numbers that are hard to imagine. (A BI analysis of Meta's federal filings last week showed that the company's software engineers can create a base salary of up to $480,000.) A former meta-engineer who still works in the technology industry said, “Top technology talent is ultimately being treated like a top sport.”
The demand for AI experts far outweighs supply. Any engaging salary that Meta actually offers must be seduced by people to abandon their sophisticated hotbed of AI innovation and to bring out Meta, a company that bets everything on Metaverse. Meta definitely needs to open its wallet to realize his dream of building personalized AI for everyone at Mark Zuckerberg.
It appears Zuckerberg is now testing the number of zeros people need to make a check to play for his team. But perhaps more than anything, the eye-opening salary underscores the split between the talents of top AI and our others not just a gap, but a crack.
“No matter how experienced and highly qualified you have, creating a salary for an NBA player is meaningless for an engineer,” says Natalia Luka, a researcher in economic sociology, organization and science and technology at the University of California, Berkeley. The “exorbitant” amounts of money that tech companies pay “not only AI engineers, but also computing power, data centers, and all of those costs,” she says, “is putting a lot of pressure on cutting costs elsewhere.”
“There's this existential fear of avoiding the field being radically changed,” says the former meta-engineer.
Thousands of tech employees are watching their job security fall apart, just as top AI employees send Hachas offer letters. Last week, Microsoft announced it would lift 9,000 workers (among those affected by the sales and Xbox division), bringing the company's total cut this year to around 15,000 this year. This is because tech companies have spent nearly three years culling after exaggerating and storing talent during the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 600,000 high-tech workers have lost their jobs since the layoffs. FYI began tracking industry cuts in 2022. However, technology employment continues to grow overall, and according to a new report from CompTIA, the industry association for the IT industry, it is expected to be twice as fast as other sectors over the next decade.
Still, the disparity is wary of many things. “This existential horror has been radically changing in this field, with most companies just hiring seniors, so newcomers have pulled rugs from under them,” the former meta-engineer said. It “makes sense in the short term,” but he added, “they are afraid of that.”
Some meta insiders are deeply cynical about the new “Superintelligence” organization led by 28-year-old Alexandr Wang and the recent recruitment from Openai and Deepmind. A screenshot of the Blind meta employee group shared with Business Insider shows one employee calling the new group “Marketing BS fore Media.” We are concerned that Meta's current Genai organization will be on the sidelines or laid off. In one post, I ask, “Should I leave Genai? We all feel like we're fired.”
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Every company has been investing and pivoting in AI more and more over the past few years, while other workers are stepping into the bill. Meta bought almost half of the scale AI for $14 billion last month. The leading technology companies from Google to Meta boast about how the career ladder of entry-level software engineers uses AI to create code and become more efficient to guide Totter's careers. “We must probably focus on everything about AI and assume that we must assume that we will reduce other potential areas of innovation, other potential investments. Furthermore, we will probably reduce other workers with some capacity.”
The simultaneous battle between Meta and Openai over the most elite talent in the industry is far from the only talent. As of April 2024, according to Revels.fyi, entry-level AI engineers were about 8.5% more than other engineers. Intermediate and advanced level engineers earn around 11% more than similar experienced engineers who don't work directly with AI. According to management consulting firm Bain & Company, demand for AI skills has increased by 21% each year since 2019.
Not everyone is angry about the wage gap. The current engineer at Meta's Genai Org said he believes most people in the company understand and even support the rationale. “I can't create such an impact, so I don't deserve that kind of compensation,” they said. “I think most meta employees are riding quite a bit on this. If this team is disproportionately delivering, we're all profiting through stock.”
Sonny Tambe, a professor at Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said the rush of AI talent isn't too different from other times when he has the skills to do a job that is very popular after work. “What's different now is that the pace is much faster and companies that win this market may have large rewards. “The effect will be more pronounced because AI companies don't have time to wait for their talent pool to expand.”
Experts are skeptical that the salary of superstar athletes will become a new norm for top AI talent. This can even become a fashion that passes as more people are trained to lead generative AI teams. “The market is adjusted in that there are qualified people who can do this kind of job,” says Luke. “Now, it's a pretty selected group that really knows how to run these huge AI systems.”
It appears there is a two-tiered system that is split into meta while waiting for more AI experts to emerge. The blind workers describe recruits at the General Assembly as “selected minority.” One employee sarcastically noted that people working at Genai Org “label data at the minimum wage.” Another thing is, “Only a select few will be promoted… this is an era of elite internal poaching.” Tech companies need to invest in other areas to advance their goals. For now, it's the best time to become one of the few brightest brains in AI.
Amanda Hoover He is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, covering the high-tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.
Pranav dixit I am a meta correspondent for Business Insider based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Business Insider's discourse narrative provides a perspective on the most pressing issues of the day, informed by analysis, reporting and expertise.
