Yesterday, over 500 OpenAI employees threatened the board to leave the company if they didn’t change the course they had taken. Firing Sam Altman without prior notice was deeply unsettling in the offices, and many saw it as an opportunity to exert pressure.
Now, the company is trying to attract some of the top researchers from Google with a multimillion-dollar salary package, as well as high-tech resources that include AI accelerator chips for testing.
Because although OpenAI appears to be on the brink, the reality is that it’s still valued at over $80 billion. This makes it the top AI company in the world.
Hiring talent based on millions of dollars
If their recruiters manage to attract the top AI researchers from Google, they could benefit from compensation packages ranging between 5 to 10 million dollars after the latest stock sale, as per The Information.
The company behind ChatGPT has already recruited talents from Google and Meta to assist in working on their AI chatbot. Five former Google researchers were acknowledged in OpenAI’s blog post that announced the launch of ChatGPT last November.
OpenAI has hired at least 93 individuals who previously worked at Google and Meta. According to LeadGenius and Punks & Pinstripes data, as of February, about 59 former Google employees and roughly 34 from Meta were working for the company.
A job offer for a Research Engineer position in OpenAI’s Alignment team shows an annual salary range of $245,000 to $450,000, stating that the total compensation includes “generous equity” and other benefits.
Jan Leike, head of the Alignment team at the company focusing on aligning their AI systems with human interests, mentioned in August that the team is hiring research engineers, scientists, and managers.
Leike mentioned in a podcast that the company is seeking strong candidates passionate about making AI safer, capable of critical thinking, understanding machine learning, and proficient in programming.
