Some of the CEOs of the world's most prominent technology companies may have made it their personal mission to hire you if you have specific skills and experience with generative artificial intelligence.
One technology person with an AI background said that OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman called him last year to effectively pitch him to join the company. He told Business Insider that he was surprised. The person had already had an interview there, but after hearing Altman's story, he was motivated to join the company and accepted the offer immediately after the call.
Another AI engineer told BI that he was similarly surprised to see Meta co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg pop up in an email chain about their available roles. told BI. This engineer also ultimately decided to join the meta.
As AI competition intensifies, tech companies are offering generous compensation packages as the battle continues for the limited pool of talent with AI experience: talented researchers, data scientists, and people with generative AI skills. , a famous CEO personally recruits talent. and business acumen.
“Competing CEOs are definitely texting each other,” said Dan Portillo, founder of Sweat Equity Ventures and co-founder of General Partnership.
He said many companies are still “actively looking to hire AI researchers.” These roles are in high demand due to their focus on large-scale language models that underpin generative AI and the infrastructure on which it is built.
BI spoke to several tech employees about how companies are hiring them for AI skills. The employees identified by BI requested anonymity so they could speak freely.
expensive compensation package
With private financial markets excited about generative AI startups, AI talent can command high rewards. Global private investment in AI projects and companies could reach $200 billion by next year, according to a Goldman Sachs study.
One person hired to join OpenAI told BI that the financial package he was ultimately offered: a salary increase of about $100,000 and stock that would make him a millionaire within a few years. He said he did it for a reason.
“Corporate leaders are acting on a sense that time is opening up right now, but one of the characteristics of this moment is that CEOs and co-founders are saying, 'We're going to get employees, we're going to get business. ,” said Jaclyn Rice Nelson, CEO of Tribe AI.
Nelson pointed to a new type of work emerging at Anthropic, the AI startup that created the Claude chatbot, a big rival to ChatGPT. The role is that of an agile engineer and librarian, and Nelson described the job as non-technical and designed to “bridge the gap” in more academic knowledge and skills. The expected salary range for this role is from $250,000 to $375,000.
In addition, technology companies will give performance bonuses and large stock awards to people working in AI-related jobs, Nelson added. She said it's common to see salary packages “well over $1 million.”
“Gold Rush People”
Vinny Gill, founder and CEO of Kognitos, a startup that uses generative AI to automate business processes, says that for some people looking to work in AI, big tech is a hot topic. He said he would choose a role in a startup. It has its own advantages.
Kognitos announced it closed $20 million in Series A funding in late 2023 and is hiring new employees at a rate of about one per week, primarily for AI engineering roles. About half were from Big Tech companies.
Gill, who was chief technology officer at Nutanix before founding Cognitos in 2021, said AI engineers are more like artists than scientists, and artists can feel stifled by working at large companies. said that it was high.
“Artists are never happy in a big technology environment,” Gill says. “They want independence, they want freedom of expression, and they don't want someone to come along and dabble on their canvas.”
Gill acknowledged that competition for AI talent is fierce right now, but said the company has been able to attract new employees by giving candidates more creative control than traditional large companies. Of course, the promise of big rewards if the startup gets acquired or goes public doesn't hurt either.
Gill said Cognitos' new hires are not coming from Big Tech, but coming from other startups. He said there is a sense that if you want to “succeed,” 2024 will be the year you limit the jobs that will help you achieve that.
“These are gold rush people,” he said.
A culture of entrepreneurship
David A. Steinberg, co-founder and CEO of AI marketing firm Zeta Global, says building the right culture can help midsize AI companies that don't have the same appeal as startups. , he said that this could give startups an advantage in the competition for talent. A company with abundant opportunities for early career recruitment.
“Younger generations want great upward mobility. They want to feel like they can create wealth with the equity they receive,” he said. “And they also want a very good work-life balance.”
To that end, Zeta Global offers flexible working hours and hybrid work schedules, and invests heavily in training and development programs. Steinberg describes this culture as “entrepreneurial.”
“The next generation is going to want to feel empowered. They want to feel like they're working on something cool,” Steinberg said. “They don't want to have children,” he added.
Some AI talent are self-employed and start their own companies.
“As companies compete with funding announcements and high valuations, potential mass hires are asking themselves, 'Why am I paying 100,000 when I can do this and get paid in the tens of millions?' Do I really need to be paid 10,000 yen?'' Tribe AI's Nelson said.
She added that a founder she knows has done exactly the same thing in recent months. He saw another big round of funding for another new AI company of his, so he quit his tech job and founded his own AI startup.
“He was like, 'That's it, I can do better on my own,'” Nelson said. “You can reach a point where you feel the opportunity cost of being locked into a full-time job is too high.”
Without hiring high-level AI talent, companies could fall behind
For some companies, spending to hire higher-level or executive-level AI talent may remain tight as board leadership focuses broadly on driving profits and reducing costs.
Greg Selker, managing director of executive search at Stanton Chase, said: “The need for great talent, across AI technology and business, is not going away. There just isn't enough talent.” talk. “Some companies don't want to pay whatever it takes to acquire top talent.”
Selkar is in the final stages of placing vice-president-level candidates in private companies with a focus on data science, a type of technical role that handles important AI-related tasks. He said the candidate is a good fit for the company across its technology and business needs, but the company is still “struggled with the idea that we probably need to hire someone at the executive level.”
“In this market, it's tough when you think you might have to pay 30% to 50% more than you expected for a good company,” Selker said.
In Selker's view, companies argue over hiring executives such as vice presidents and heads of AI to their detriment. This is especially true as most large companies see AI adoption as a panacea and are rushing to implement it internally.
“Companies that need talent to lead AI are still reluctant to hire for big titles and want to hire at a low price,” Selker said. He compared this to the creation of a chief information security officer, which companies that already had a CTO initially rejected as requiring an additional chief information security officer.
“Ultimately, that discussion was resolved with a major security breach,” Selker said. “If companies don't take the necessary steps now to hire the talent they need, some disasters may have to occur in the market first.”
