Meta’s recruiting blitz claims three OpenAI researchers

In the fight for top AI talent, Meta just reportedly snagged a win, poaching three OpenAI researchers despite rival Sam Altman’s public mockery of Mark Zuckerberg’s lavish hiring tactics.

The latest victory in Zuckerberg’s widely-reported recruiting blitz: Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai – who established OpenAI’s Zurich office – have joined Meta’s superintelligence team, the WSJ reports, suggesting Zuckerberg’s methods can deliver.

As Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, first revealed in a recent podcast with his brother Jack, Zuckerberg has been dangling $100+ million compensation packages in an effort to lure top talent from OpenAI. The Journal subsequently reported that Zuckerberg has been personally WhatsApping hundreds of top AI researchers, coordinating targets through his “Recruiting Party 🎉” chat before hosting dinners at his homes in Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe.

The strategy is producing mixed results. Zuckerberg recently bagged Scale AI’s CEO Alexandr Wang with a $14 billion investment, making the 28-year-old one of tech’s priciest hires ever. But bigger game has eluded the Meta CEO, says the WSJ, including OpenAI co-founders Ilya Sutskever and John Schulman, both of whom have gone on to co-found newer startups.

In that podcast, Altman said of Zuckerberg’s charm campaign: “I’m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on [those offers].”