Sam Altman: Meta tried to lure OpenAI employees with billion-dollar salaries

After reports suggested Meta has tried to poach employees from OpenAI and Google Deepmind by offering huge compensation packages, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman weighed in, saying those reports are true. He confirmed them during a podcast with his brother Jack Altman.

“There have been huge offers to a lot of our team,” said Sam Altman, “like $100 million in sign-on bonuses, more than that in annual compensation.”

According to Altman, the recruitment attempts have largely failed. “I’m really glad that, at least so far, none of our best people have chosen to take it.

Sam Altman says he thinks it’s because employees have decided that OpenAI has a better chance of achieving artificial general intelligence, AGI, than Meta. It could also be because they believe that OpenAI could one day be a higher-valued company than Meta.