Meta has just put the brakes on the red-hot AI.
In a statement to Business Insider, Meta called for a job freeze on the “basic organizational plan” for the artificial intelligence sector.
A Meta spokesperson said the company “creates a solid structure for our new super intelligence efforts after getting people on board and conducting annual budgeting and planning exercises.”
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported Freeze, said it started last week, banning department employees from crossing the team. The journal added that there was no internal communication during the period of the freeze.
Meta declined to comment on the number of superintelligence jobs he has made so far, or to Business Insider when the freeze was enabled.
The cold of Meta's employment comes months after the huge competition in technology poached AI talent with eye-opening offers to build “personal tensions.”
Business Insider previously reported, tensions are already rising within the newly formed team between luxuriously compensated new recruits and existing researchers.
In a recent email seen by Business Insider, Alexandr Wang, leader of Meta Superintelligence Labs, wrote that “Superintelligence is coming,” and the “take seriously” meta needs to make major changes. The email outlined the biggest reorganization of Meta's previous artificial intelligence operations.
Freeze comes from scrutiny of how much Wall Street spends to compete in AI races.
Analysts at Morgan Stanley wrote in a memo on Monday that Meta's labor costs are rising as the company is leaning heavily towards equity grants to recruit AI talent.
Analysts warned that these grants feature a larger slice of the meta cost structure, which could be a concern for the next investor after capital expenditure.
Stock-based compensation is either a “driven AI breakthrough with large-scale value creation” or a “strategic capital allocation decision” that can simply dilute shareholder value without the benefits of explicit innovation.
Meta's stock has grown by around 28% so far this year.
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Meta AI washes away
Meta has made headlines to fire a $100 million signature bonus to lock down jobs in Cutthroat AI races. Rival technology leaders were not embarrassed to step back.
Openai CEO Sam Altman said on a podcast in June that Meta felt “crazy” if he was willing to spend a lot of it to gain talent.
“I don't think it's going to set a great culture because it's a lot of pre-guaranteed comp strategy and the degree to which it really is focused on it, and the reason you say someone to get involved, like the degree to which it's focused on it, not the mission,” Altman said on the podcast.
Humanity CEO Dario Amody said the company will not play the bidding war game.
In an episode of the Big Technology Podcast released last month, Amodei said that in response to an outside offer, the company posted a message to staff that “doesn't compromise on our principles of compensation, the principles of fairness.”
Such large pay changes could “destroy” the corporate culture by “unfairly treating people,” he added.
Other leaders have also expressed caution.
AMD CEO Lisa Su said in an interview with Wired last week that she didn't expect to provide a $1 billion salary package for potential jobs.
“I think there's a lot of competition for talent. I'm a fan, but money is important, but frankly, when it comes to attracting talent, that's not necessarily the most important thing,” Su told Wired.
“It's important to be in the zip code of these numbers, but it's very important to have people who really believe in the mission of what you're trying to do,” she added.
