Meta made significant moves in the AI talent war, but Alex Wang, the chief of Meta’s AI team, is not pleased with the narrative that his researchers are mercenaries. During an interview for the "Core Memory" podcast, Wang discussed how external perceptions often differ from what happens inside the organization.
Wang told tech journalists Ashlee Vance and Kylie Robison that it's incorrect to assume that Meta's top AI researchers were lured away by generous compensation packages alone. He explained, "I think it’s an incorrect assumption to think that the researchers are just money motivated or anything." Wang added, "For most of them, the financial prospects actually looked very strong as well."
Instead of being driven purely by financial incentives, Wang highlighted other motivating factors for Meta's recruits, including access to substantial computing resources. He said, "People joined because there was high compute per researcher, so they could make more progress than maybe they would be able to make it wherever they were before." Wang also noted that the recruitment process involved showing genuine care and support for individual research directions.
Wang, who cofounded Scale AI, was considered one of Meta’s top prizes. The tech giant spent $14 billion to acquire nearly half of Scale AI and bring Wang on board as the leader of a new AI team. Other notable recruits include former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, Ruoming Pang from Apple's foundation model team, and Trapit Bansal, a former top researcher at OpenAI.
Wang emphasized that beyond compensation packages, Meta went to great lengths to demonstrate its commitment to AI research. He mentioned that Zuckerberg personally delivered homemade soup to an unnamed employee during the recruitment process, illustrating how far they were willing to go to show their dedication.
Meta’s other top recruits include Nat Friedman (former GitHub CEO), Ruoming Pang (Apple's foundation model team), and Trapit Bansal (OpenAI).
