Billionaire investor Mark Cuban said AI Arms Race will be acquired by companies that accumulate top talent and lock in valuable intellectual property.
“What people lack about AI, IMO [in my opinion]Cuban posted on X on Sunday.
Cuba believes that as interests grow, businesses will not halt anything dominant, such as hiring key people or locking up the intellectual property they produce.
“We're watching them hire talent and IP to advance their models,” he wrote in a follow-up X post. “They start paying to lock the IP the model needs and the people who create it, just to keep them away from their competitors.”
Cuban comments occur when you reach AI Talent Wars.
Meta reportedly provided a signature bonus of up to $100 million, part of a $15 billion deal to recruit Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and other top researchers.
Last month in his brother's podcast “Uncapped with Jack Altman,” Openai CEO Sam Altman said Meta had tried to poach the best employees in a nine-figure package, but so far failed.
Meta was then pushed back, with CTO Andrew Bosworth saying last month of CNBC's “Closing Bell: Overtime” that Altman “failed to mention that he was countering those offers.”
But not everyone is chewing. “The people here are very mission-oriented,” said Benjamin Mann, co-founder of humanity.
Mann told “With humanity, we'll have an impact on the future of humanity,” Mann told “I'm going to make money.”
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Still, Cuba believes these types of altruistic motivations make it difficult to maintain the landscape defined by corporate hoarding.
“We're watching them hire talent and IP to advance their models,” he wrote in a follow-up X post. “They start paying to lock IPs they think they need their models and create people who create it just to keep them away from their competitors.”
Cuba sees this changing the culture of research itself.
“The days of publishing and rotting are probably over, and it's now public and its value has been eaten up by all the basic models,” he warned.
His advice: “Encrypt and silo” your precious IP “Encrypt and silo” and sell it to the highest bidder or keep it behind the paywall.
“IP is the king of the world of AI,” Cuba writes. “They are changing times.”
On the broader battle in the industry, he added:
Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas reflected Cuban predictions in an episode of the “Decoder” podcast last Thursday, comparing industry employment to the world of high stakes in professional sports.
“It definitely feels like the transfer market now, like the NBA or whatever,” he said. “There will be some individual stars that have so much leverage.”
