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Title: OpenAI's Leadership Responds to Meta's Recruitment Efforts: "Someone has entered our house"

In the intense competition for top artificial intelligence (AI) talent in Silicon Valley, the leadership of OpenAI has taken a proactive approach in response to Meta's aggressive recruitment efforts. On Saturday, Mark Chen, the director of research at OpenAI, sent an energetic service message to employees promising to compete with the industry giants for the best research skills. This message, which was shared on Slack and obtained by Wired, came just a few days after Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, managed to recruit four senior researchers from OpenAI to join the Meta Superintendent Lab.

"I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone had entered our home and stole something," wrote Chen in his message. "Please consider that we weren't sitting on the bottom." This sentiment was echoed by other research managers at OpenAI who also penned messages to employees in an apparent effort to encourage them to stay.

Chen assured employees that he was working closely with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and other managers of the company "24 hours a day to talk to those that have gives." He further stated that they had been more proactive than ever before, recalibrating their compensation packages, and extending creative means for recognizing and rewarding the best skills.

However, despite the management's efforts to retain employees, Chen made it clear that he had "high-equity personal standards" and needed to maintain the best skills in line with these principles. "While I will strive to keep each of you, I cannot do it at the cost of fairness for others," he wrote.

The increased competition for AI researchers is not just limited to OpenAI but is heating up across Silicon Valley. Zuckerberg has been notably aggressive in his recruitment strategy, offering signing bonuses of $100 million to certain employees at OpenAI, according to comments made by Altman on a podcast with his brother Jack Altman. Multiple sources within OpenAI confirmed these figures. Furthermore, Zuckerberg has also personally reached out to potential recruits, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Over the past month, Meta has significantly increased its AI research recruitment efforts, particularly targeting skills from OpenAI and Google. A source close to Meta's efforts revealed that the company is aiming for a specific skillset and has been unsuccessful in their attempts to recruit some of OpenAI's strongest talents with targeted packages so far.

Though Anthropic is also a high-level rival, it has a less adjusted culture compared to Meta, according to a source from Wired. "They did not essentially extend the team, but for one of the best skills, the sky is the limit," explains the source.

OpenAI and Meta did not respond to requests for comments.

In response to Meta's aggressive recruitment efforts, seven other research managers at OpenAI penned messages to their teams in an attempt to encourage them to stay. A leader of the research team encouraged employees to reach out if they had received a Meta offer: "If he puts pressure on you, or the ridiculous explosion adds simply tell them to retreat, it isn't nice to put pressure on individuals who, probably, have made one of the most important decisions in their lives."

The current talent war for AI researchers has reached new heights, with companies offering lucrative packages and personalized recruitment strategies to secure the best talent. As the race for AI dominance continues, it remains to be seen how this competition will shape the future of AI research and development.

Sources:

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* Wall Street Journal

* Podcast with Sam Altman and Jack Altman