Peter Deng works for Openai, Facebook and Google. He also interned at Microsoft. Now, all of his former employers are fighting for AI talent.
AI Talent Wars awarded a small number of researchers a balloon compensation package and a quick competitive offer. Deng does not work in any of these companies. He has since served as a general partner for Felicis, but the company's disparity has increased.
In the “Unsupervised Learning” podcast, the former Openai VP of consumer products said that the talent war is expanding the pay gap.
“I think it's a secondary effect,” Den said. “There are people who are not researchers who are contributing bundles to the product or company or feel they are bringing a lot of value, but the inconsistencies between pay and RSU, everything else is wider and wider.”
Deng said, “The HR department will have to deal with it.” [it] At some point. ”
AI researchers are like star athletes from Tech Arms Race, which was ignited by the rise of ChatGpt. Top talent is highly sought after by major tech players such as Openai, Meta, Humanitarian, Confusing, Xai. In fact, the VP of Databricks at AI Naveen Rao resembles the war of talent as “looking for Lebron James.”
AI companies have been competitively poaching researchers and engineers last year. In 2024, Google signed a $2.7 billion contract with Character.ai, with its main goal being to reclaim Noam Shazeer. At the time, Conor Grennan, chief AI architect at NYU's Stern School of Business, told Business Insider that Shazeer was a “star quarterback.”
But there are things that you have and don't, like sports. For all LeBron James, there are also benchwormers who are involved in team training and practices, but still make a lot of money.
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Openai CEO Sam Altman, who is trying to prevent talent escape as Meta and other companies surround his employees, spoke about recruiting attempts and pay packages that splash his eyes. In June, he told his brothers that these extreme poaching techniques could create a poor corporate culture.
“I don't think it's going to set a great culture because it's a lot of pre-guaranteed comp strategy and the reason you say you're going to get someone involved, like the extent to which you focus on it, not on the work, but on it.”
Even if the war of talent has widened the pay gap, Den still thought it was generally positive. The winner, he said, was “everyone else.” “Investors and other startup founders” benefit from the promotion to general governors.
“I trust the market because it's very clear that this research talent is so important that it's very important for each of these large labs,” Deng said. “It's absolutely essential to make sure each of these labs retains and recruits each other's talent.”
Maintaining talent may be their biggest struggle. Mark Zuckerberg poured billions of dollars into building Meta's Superintelligence Labs, hanging millions of dollars in salaries in front of researchers at Openai and Google Deepmind, and investing billions of dollars as part of the deal to acquire AI Cofounder and CEO Alexandr Wang to lead the new division.
Just two months after the launch, at least eight employees left the company.
