OpenAI’s chief research officer, Mark Chen, says the public narrative about Meta pulling talent away from rival labs is missing a more complicated, and at times surprising, reality behind the scenes involving Mark Zuckerberg.
In a new interview on the Core Memory Podcast, Chen says the media often portrays the hiring battle as a one-way flow from OpenAI to Meta.
He says the actual dynamic is far more competitive and includes direct, personal efforts by Mark Zuckerberg himself. Chen adds that there’s a limited pool of talent in the AI space, and Meta’s aggressive recruitment efforts have targeted many leaders across the industry.
“Everyone kind of knows who they are. And I think many companies have realized that one of the key ingredients, not the only important ingredient, but one of the key ingredients to building a great AI lab is to get the best talent. And I think it’s not a surprise that Meta has been aggressively employing the strategy.”
He says OpenAI has been far from passive and that the narrative of people leaving in large numbers does not match his experience.
“We have not sat back idly, and I actually want to tell the story from OpenAI’s point of view. I think a lot has been made in the media of this unidirectional flow of talent over to Meta. But the way that I have seen it is Meta, they have gone after a lot of people quite unsuccessfully.”
Chen said Meta targeted many of his direct reports and failed in nearly every attempt.
“To give you context, within my staff, within my direct reports, before they hired anyone from OpenAI, I think they went after half of my direct reports, and they all declined. And of course, if they have something like $10 billion of capital per year to deploy towards talent, they are going to get someone.”
He said the escalating competition has produced unexpected moments, including a personal recruiting effort by Zuckerberg.
“Some interesting stories here are, Zuck actually went and hand-delivered soup to people that he was trying to recruit from us.”
Chen says the gesture surprised him at first, but he now sees how unconventional tactics can be effective in their own way.
“Yeah, I think he hand-cooked the soup. And it was shocking to me at the time, but over time, I have kind of updated. These things can be effective in their own way. And I have also delivered soup to people that we have been recruiting from Meta.”
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