Meta's offers ranged from $200 million to $1 billion in multi-year pay packages.
Thinking Machines Lab rejected all offers, prioritising independence and vision.
Meta recently hired Apple’s AI model head with a $200M+ package over several years.
Meta has been in the headlines for poaching AI talent from the industry. Recently, the social media giant grabbed eyeballs for trying to poach talent by offering multi-million-dollar pay packages. Meta has also tried to poach talent from the ex-OpenAI chief’s startup Thinking Machines Lab. As per the reports, the company offered billion-dollar offers to select members, but we turned them down.
SurveyAccording to the report by Wired, Meta extended pay packages ranging between $200 million and $1 billion in multi-year compensation packages, to lure top talent and expand the Superintelligence Lab. Despite the huge packages, Murati confirmed that not even a single person has taken the offer.
This was not the first time. Big tech companies have been using their deep pockets to acquire innovations, but not all startups are ready to sell out. Murati, a former OpenAI CTO, introduced Thinking Machines Lab earlier this year, and the company has already gained unicorn status, without a single product launch.
However, Meta has pushed back on some of the specifics with spokesperson Andy Stone claiming only a handful of offers were made and dismissing some reported figures. But the core fact: Meta offered billion-dollar packages, and the bait did not work.
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If the reports and insiders are believed to be true, the researchers at Thinking Machines Lab are prioritising independence, driven by Murati’s long-term vision of building foundational AI technologies free from corporate interference.
Meanwhile, Meta has poached many employees from OpenAI and other tech companies. Recently, the company poached Apple’s AI model chief, Ruoming Pang, by offering him a pay package of more than $200 million. However, the package was maintained for a period of multiple years.
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Ashish Singh
Ashish Singh is the Chief Copy Editor at Digit. He's been wrangling tech jargon since 2020 (Times Internet, Jagran English '22). When not policing commas, he's likely fueling his gadget habit with coffee, strategising his next virtual race, or plotting a road trip to test the latest in-car tech. He speaks fluent Geek. View Full Profile
