Meta’s renewed push into AI is throwing the entire market off-balance, and Apple is particularly exposed. With morale arguably at an all-time low inside Cupertino’s AI teams, Zuckerberg’s multimillion-dollar check-cutting spree may have already pulled at least one top researcher out of Apple Park. And there may be more to come.
What multimillion-dollar check-cutting spree?
According to recent reports, Meta has offered massive pay packages to lure top AI researchers from rivals.
And while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman claims those offers have included bonuses “like $100 million,” Meta execs later clarified that the figures reflect multi-year compensation packages, rather than instant sign-on checks.
Still, even the walk-backs suggest that numbers in the tens of millions are now fair game, to the point that OpenAI is reportedly “recalibrating” compensation to try and stop a brain drain that already took at least six senior researchers to Menlo Park.
Here’s Wired, which reported on a memo that OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer, Mark Chen, sent internally:
“I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something,” Chen wrote. “Please trust that we haven’t been sitting idly by.” Chen promised that he was working with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and other leaders at the company “around the clock to talk to those with offers,” adding, “we’ve been more proactive than ever before, we’re recalibrating comp, and we’re scoping out creative ways to recognize and reward top talent.”
While much of the drama has centered around OpenAI, Bloomberg says some members of Apple’s foundation models team have been approached with offers ranging from $10 million to $40 million per year.
At least one senior Apple AI researcher, Tom Gunter, left the company last week, although it is unclear whether he left for Meta. Others reportedly came close to walking, including the MLX team behind Apple’s open-source framework for training models on Apple Silicon.
But where did this come from?
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