Why Meta's Mark Zuckerberg is offering jobs worth $100 million to poach AI talent from Apple, OpenAI

Facebook Meta has reportedly hired Apple’s top executive in charge of its AI models, to join its new Superintelligence Labs division. Mark Zuckerberg, the Chief Executive Officer of Meta Platforms, is giving away job offers worth $100 million ever since he has been on a hiring spree for the best minds of artificial intelligence (AI).

According to Bloomberg, Ruoming Pang, who led the team responsible for developing Apple’s AI models, will become the latest member to join Meta’s new “Superintelligence Lab". Mark Zuckerberg is on a hiring spree for its artificial intelligence (AI) unit, particularly making headlines for poaching talent from rival ChatGPT maker OpenAI with alleged $100 million pay packages. At least nine of the hires jumped ship from Sam Altman’s OpenAI, with the others coming from Google DeepMind and Amazon-backed Anthropic.

Meta reportedly lured Ruoming Pang with a compensation package “worth tens of millions of dollars per year", Bloomberg reported citing sources. The Instagram parent company recently hired away researchers Yuanzhi Li from OpenAI and Anton Bakhtin from Anthropic. It also recruited Daniel Frost, former CEO and co-founder of Safe Superintelligence at his newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs.


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Meta poaching dozen top AI researchers

Since last week, Meta has poached more than a dozen top AI researchers purportedly offering compensation packages worth $100 million or more to win the AI arms race. This means the company's spending on new hires could surpass $1 billion, according to New York Post. Mark Zuckerberg has now created momentum among other leading scientists who see his team as having a statistically higher chance of building “super-intelligent” AI systems before anyone else.

“As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight,” Zuckerberg said in an internal message to employees on June 30. The announcement helped push Meta’s stock to an all-time high.

Zuckerberg is on the lookout for the "most revered scientists" in AI, and is sending them cold emails and offering them roles in his new Superintelligence Labs division, according to a Bloomberg report. The goal of this Superintelligence Labs division is to build artificial-intelligence software that's smarter than humans and additionally, OpenAI has asked all its employees to take a week-off to focus on their well-being.

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According to a report by Wired, Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI has given his staff this break and is calling it a much needed-break but in reality there is an employee crisis going on in the company. More than a dozen employees of OpenAI have recently quit due to extreme pressure and demands to work for at least 80 hours every week.

Mark Zuckerberg is seizing the moment in the AI race by recruiting top-tier talent, luring them with perks like reduced working hours and lighter workloads.

After previously vowing to make AI freely accessible, Zuckerberg is now ramping up his efforts to make a deeper impact. According to reports, he’s building strong momentum among leading AI researchers, many of whom now see his team as statistically more likely to crack the code on developing "super-intelligent" systems before anyone else.

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Meta’s tactics have miffed Altman, who has publicly grumbled about his billionaire rival targeting OpenAI’s employees with exorbitant packages. Meta has also declined a report that that it had offered up to $300 million to some AI talent. “Some people have chosen to greatly exaggerate what’s happening for their own purposes,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said at the time.