Inside the Great AI Talent Auction: The Deals, the Free Agents—and the Egos

As the bidding escalates, the scarce talent weighs considerations other than the highest offer: ‘Why would you go to a less advanced lab just for money?’

Say you’re at the top of your field. Say you’ve been promoted to be a senior researcher at OpenAI, watching the paper value of your equity swell as your company’s valuation goes from less than $20 billion to $260 billion in just four years. Say Mark Zuckerberg—yes, Zuck, personally—comes texting and calling, offering you tens of millions of dollars to help salvage his struggling AI lab.

What do you do? Consider whether the move is actually worth it.

“A lot of the early OpenAI people have achieved financial independence already,” said one person who was in that situation. “At some point, people are seeing a $25 million offer, and they’re just like, ‘Well, after tax it’s half that.’” The person turned Zuckerberg down. “I remember 10 years ago, people would be like, ‘Wow, a $400,000 offer.’ But now it’s gotten so crazy.”