Meta is definitely offering hefty multimillion-dollar pay packages to AI researchers when wooing them to its new superintelligence lab. But no one is really getting a $100 million \u201csigning bonus,\u201d according to a poached researcher and comments from a leaked internal meeting.<\/p>\n
During a company-wide all-hands meeting on Thursday leaked to The Verge<\/a>, some of Meta\u2019s top executives were asked about the bonuses that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said<\/a> Meta had offered to top researchers.<\/p>\n Meta\u2019s CTO Andrew Bosworth implied that only a few people for very senior leadership roles may have been offered that kind of money, but clarified \u201cthe actual terms of the offer\u201d wasn\u2019t a \u201csign-on bonus. It\u2019s all these different things.\u201d In other words, not an instant chunk of cash. Tech companies typically offer the biggest chunks of their pay to senior leaders in restricted stock unit (RSU) grants, dependent on either tenure or performance metrics.<\/p>\n A four-year total pay package worth about $100 million for a very senior leader is not inconceivable for Meta. Most of Meta\u2019s named officers<\/a>, including Bosworth, have earned total compensation of between $20 million and nearly $24 million per year for years.<\/p>\n Altman was \u201csuggesting that we\u2019re doing this for every single person,\u201d Bosworth reportedly said at the meeting. \u201cLook, you guys, the market\u2019s hot. It\u2019s not that hot.\u201d (Meta did not immediately respond to our request for comment.)<\/p>\n On Thursday, researcher Lucas Beyer confirmed he was leaving OpenAI to join Meta along with the two others who led OpenAI\u2019s Zurich office<\/a>. He tweeted<\/a>: \u201c1) yes, we will be joining Meta. 2) no, we did not get 100M sign-on, that\u2019s fake news.\u201d (Beyer politely declined to comment further on his new role to TechCrunch.)<\/p>\n Beyer\u2019s expertise is in computer vision AI. That aligns with what Meta is pursuing: entertainment AI, rather than productivity AI, Bosworth reportedly said in that meeting. Meta already has a stake in the ground in that area with its Quest VR headsets and its Ray-Ban and Oakley AI glasses.<\/p>\n Still, some of the people Meta is trying to nab are indeed worthy of big pay packages in this tight AI talent marketplace. As TechCrunch was first to report, Meta has hired OpenAI\u2019s Trapit Bansal<\/a>, known for his groundbreaking work on AI reasoning models. He had worked at OpenAI since 2022.<\/p>\n Certainly, Scale co-founder and CEO Alexandr Wang is getting a healthy chunk of cash, likely more than $100 million, as part of Meta\u2019s deal to buy 49% ownership of his company. As we previously reported, the $14 billion Meta is paying is being distributed to shareholders as a cash dividend. Wang is almost certainly a major shareholder in Scale entitled to those dividends.<\/p>\n Still, while Meta isn\u2019t handing out $100 million willy-nilly, it is still spending big to hire in AI. <\/p>\n