Openai’s CEO Sam Altman has retaliated against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for his recent AI talent poaching spree. Altman, in a scathing response to OpenAI researchers on Monday night, which was obtained by WIRED, argued that staying at OpenAI was the only option for those who want to build artificial general Intelligence. He also hinted that the company would be evaluating compensation across the entire research organization.
Altman also dismissed Meta’s recruitment efforts, saying that what the company was doing could lead to cultural problems in the future.
He wrote on Slack, “We’ve gone from nerds to the most interesting people (at least) in the tech world.” “AI Twitter is toxic. Meta is acting in a manner that feels somewhat unappealing. I assume things will become even crazier.” After I was fired and returned, I said that that wasn’t the craziest event in OpenAl’s history; certainly this isn’t.”
This news comes after a major announcement by Zuckerberg. The Meta CEO sent a memo on Monday to the staff introducing the new superintelligence team. It will be led by Alexandr Wang, formerly with Scale AI, as well as Nat Friedman, formerly with GitHub. Shengjia Zhao, Shuchao Bibi, Jiahui Yü, and Hongyu Ren were also on the list of new hires. Mark Chen, OpenAI’s chief researcher, told his staff that the departures felt like someone had broken into their home and stolen a valuable item.
Altman took a different tone in his note to employees on Monday.
He wrote: “Meta has got a few great employees, but it’s hard to overstate the fact that they didn’t get top talent and had to go down their list. They’ve been trying to recruit for a long time and I’ve lost count of how many people they’ve tried from here to become their Chief Scientist.” “I am proud of the mission-oriented nature of our industry as a group; there will always some mercenaries.” He wrote: “I think there is a lot more upside for OpenAl than Meta stock.” “But I believe it’s important to have huge upside after huge success. What Meta is doing, in my opinion will lead to very profound cultural problems. We will be able to share more information about this in the near future, but I think it’s important that we do it fairly for everyone and not just those who Meta targeted.
Altman made his pitch to stay at OpenAI. He wrote, “I’ve never felt more confident about our research roadmap.” “We’re making a bet that is unprecedented on computing, but I love it and am confident we’ll make good use. I think that we have the best team and culture anywhere in the world. We need to improve our culture, we’ve been through a period of hypergrowth. We have the core right, in a way I don’t believe anyone else does, and I am confident we can fix the issues.”
He added, “And perhaps more importantly than that we actually care about developing AGI in a positive way.” “Other firms care more about it as an instrumental goal than some other mission,” he added. This is and always will remain our top priority. We will be here day after day and year after year long after Meta has moved onto their next flavor of week or defended their social moat. We will continue to figure out how to do our job better than anyone. Many other efforts will rise or fall as well.”
Several high-ranking Meta employees responded in Slack to the article with their own stories of why OpenAI’s Culture is superior. “[T]They constantly rotate their top priority,” wrote one. One person wrote: “Yes, we’re quirky and strange, but that’s exactly what makes this place an amazing cradle for innovation.” “OpenAI is weird, but in a magical way. We contain multitudes.”
