OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta has attempted to recruit top talent from his company and Google DeepMind by offering massive compensation packages—some reportedly worth over $100 million. Speaking on a podcast with his brother, Jack Altman, the CEO confirmed Meta’s push to build a superintelligence team, led by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang, has met resistance, as none of OpenAI’s top researchers have accepted the offers so far.
Altman acknowledged that Meta’s efforts have targeted leading figures such as OpenAI’s Noam Brown and Google’s Koray Kavukcuoglu, though neither was swayed. He argued that the significant financial incentives offered by Meta weren’t enough to attract OpenAI’s core team, who believe in the company’s mission to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). According to Altman, his team sees OpenAI as having a better shot at realizing AGI and ultimately becoming the more impactful organization.
He criticized Meta’s strategy, saying that focusing on high salaries over a mission-driven culture may not lead to long-term success. Altman questioned whether Meta’s corporate environment was truly set up to foster innovation, stating, “I don’t think they’re a company that’s great at innovation,” though he did add that he respects some aspects of Meta.
Meta recently announced a significant investment in Scale AI and hired a few notable AI researchers, including Jack Rae from DeepMind and Johan Schalkwyk from Sesame AI. Still, the company faces the challenge of scaling up its AI team quickly while OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic maintain momentum.
Altman also hinted at OpenAI’s broader ambitions, revealing that the company is exploring an AI-powered social media app designed to deliver personalized content based on individual preferences, rather than using traditional algorithmic feeds. This move could bring OpenAI into direct competition with Meta’s core social platforms, as Meta is currently testing its own AI-powered social networking features through the Meta AI app.
