OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Meta is offering "giant offers," including signing bonuses as high as $100 million, to lure top AI talent away from his company amid an intensifying battle for supremacy in artificial intelligence.
Speaking on a podcast hosted by his brother, Altman said that while the offers from Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — were aggressive, none of OpenAI’s “best people” had yet left.
“They’re offering massive compensation per year, but people are staying because of the mission,” Altman said, referencing OpenAI’s goal of developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) and ultimately superintelligence — systems that outperform humans in virtually all cognitive tasks.
Meta recently ramped up its AI push with a $14 billion investment in Scale AI, acquiring a 49% stake in the startup. The move follows the company’s broader $15 billion initiative to pursue superintelligence and secure top-tier talent, including Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang.
Altman acknowledged Meta's efforts as “rational” but questioned its ability to innovate. “There’s many things I respect about Meta as a company, but I don’t think they’re great at innovation,” he said, drawing a parallel to Google’s failed attempt to compete with Facebook in social media.
Altman warned that even if AGI is achieved, it may not radically transform lives unless it leads to groundbreaking scientific discoveries — a goal he believes AI is uniquely positioned to achieve in the next decade.