In a bid to retain its staffers amid a Meta poaching spree, OpenAI is giving them a mandatory week-long vacation.
According to insiders who spoke to Wired, a cloud of anxiety is lingering over OpenAI’s C-suite as leaders scramble to keep staff happy and on their side — a tall order given that employees there often work up to 80 hours a week.
Over the past week, Meta has hired at least eight OpenAI researchers to work on its new “superintelligence” team. This “recruiting coup,” as the Wall Street Journal called it when breaking news about the hires, is meant to lead the company out of the hole created by founder Mark Zuckerberg’s shifting interests and investments — but it seems to have caused a secondary crisis at OpenAI in the process.
In an internal memo posted to an OpenAI Slack channel, chief research officer Mark Chen seemed genuinely upset by the Meta poaching.
“I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something,” Chen wrote in the document, which was leaked to Wired. “Please trust that we haven’t been sitting idly by.”
In his missive, the chief research officer referenced other “offers” that had been made to employees from Meta and said he and Altman are working “around the clock” to try to keep their staff from jumping to Zuckerberg’s ship.
“We’ve been more proactive than ever before, we’re recalibrating [compensation], and we’re scoping out creative ways to recognize and reward top talent,” Chen wrote.
Beyond the forthcoming week-long shutdown, it’s unclear what OpenAI is giving employees to get them to stay. As Altman mentioned in a recent podcast appearance with his brother Jack, Meta has offered some recruits $100 million signing bonuses and year-one compensation — a number confirmed by OpenAI insiders but disputed by other Wired sources at Meta.
Along with Chen’s emoting, some seven other OpenAI research heads also wrote to employees to beg them to resist the Meta buyout.
“If they pressure you, or make ridiculous exploding offers just tell them to back off, it’s not nice to pressure people in potentially the most important decision,” one such leader wrote in a message viewed by Wired. “I’d like to be able to talk to you through it and I know all about their offers.”
In yet another imploring communiqué, another OpenAI research lead suggested that Meta may amp up its poaching efforts during employees’ week-long break.
“Meta knows we’re taking this week to recharge,” the researcher wrote, “and will take advantage of it to try and pressure you to make decisions fast and in isolation.”
From the outside, this talent war between companies looking to build human-level AI is at best odd and at worst foolhardy. Peek under the surface, however, and you’ll find some serious — and intriguing — existential anxiety on both sides.
More on the OpenAI wars: There’s Explosive Drama Between OpenAI and Microsoft