Microsoft is reportedly making a “promise” of a more lively, startup-like work environment to the employees it is poaching from Google DeepMind. A report citing people who have received the offers claimed that Microsoft’s recent offers have been “heftier” than those at DeepMind, still they don’t match the scale of nine-figure contracts offered by Meta. To compare, Facebook-parent Meta has reportedly provided some researchers with contracts worth $300 million. These recent offers from Microsoft didn’t exceed what the social media giant offereed but they were higher than the typical pay at DeepMind, particularly for long-time employees.According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Suleyman, who is also a co-founder of Google’s DeepMind, is reportedly recruiting these talents personally and has been pitching recruits on the idea that the new AI division at Microsoft is a more flexible workplace than what DeepMind has become under Google’s ownership. Suleyman has promised recruits more freedom and smaller teams, a “startup vibe” that has reportedly appealed to several targets. Microsoft has already hired at least two dozen executives and other employees from Google in recent months, most of whom came from DeepMind. This includes prominent figures like Adam Sadovsky, a former distinguished engineer, and Amar Subramanya, a former VP of engineering at Google. Microsoft’s latest strategy seems to be an effort to close the gap in the AI race.
What Microsoft’s new hires from Google DeepMind said about their former company
“The culture here is refreshingly low ego yet bursting with ambition,” one of the recruits from Deepmind, Subramanya, wrote in a post shared on social networking site LinkedIn last month while announcing his new role at Microsoft.As per the report, Suleyman has been given autonomy by CEO Satya Nadella to lead Microsoft’s AI efforts and attract top talent with competitive offers. His team operates mainly from Mountain View, California, with a presence in London, and functions independently from Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington.The report also noted that a Microsoft spokesman has claimed that all of its senior leaders “have equal ability to recruit talent and manage their teams in a way that works successfully for their business and their people alike.”The new Google hires will focus on consumer-facing products like Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot, which competes with ChatGPT and Gemini, the report adds. Led by Suleyman, the consumer version of Copilot is separate from the enterprise versions used in Microsoft 365 and GitHub. Recently, Microsoft even announced deeper Copilot integration with the Edge browser to assist with tasks like comparing hotel options using open tabs.On the other hand, DeepMind expanded to around 6,000 employees as it became a key part of Google’s AI efforts. Some recruits said that they prefer working at Microsoft compared to their previous company due to its less bureaucratic structure. Former Google executive Laszlo Bock noted that Google now resembles a 20-year-earlier version of Microsoft, profitable but often slow-moving, hierarchical and political.“It feels much more like a company run by a finance person than an engineer,” he said.To counter this, Google has reportedly said that its attrition rates are below the industry average and noted that it has also hired several employees from Microsoft.“We are excited that we are able to attract the world’s leading AI talent, including researchers and engineers who come from rival labs,” a Google spokesperson said to WSJ..