OpenAI is looking to secure top talent in the artificial intelligence market by offering millions of dollars in salaries. The AI company reportedly has its eyes on AI talent from Google as well as other tech giants, reports The Information.
The startup has also been offering employee share sales that would increase its valuation by up to three times to a staggering $86 billion. OpenAI’s latest job offering includes a message that reads: “Join us now to lock in a stock package at the current valuation of $27 billion and benefit from the impending increase.”
Sources familiar with the matter have reported that OpenAI’s recruiters are promising greater access to computing resources to researchers. The researchers will also be working with specialized chips needed to run experiments and develop new techniques for AI models.
The startup is specifically looking for Google employees working on the Gemini family of AI models. OpenAI has also increased the salaries of certain junior employees in response to market conditions. Conversely, Google has recently attracted some prominent researchers from OpenAI, partly by providing more competitive salary offers.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, reportedly conveyed internally that Google stay ahead in terms of computing power until sometime next year, at which point Microsoft is expected to make more AI chips accessible.
Should the company successfully attract top Google AI researchers, they may be eligible for compensation packages ranging from $5 million to $10 million following the most recent share sale. In April, the company concluded a share sale, resulting in a valuation between $27 billion and $29 billion.
OpenAI is paying between $245,000 and $450,000 to its research engineers for the superalignment team and the total compensation also includes “generous equity” and other benefits.
OpenAI has already secured skilled researchers from Meta and Google that are currently helping with its AI chatbot. In the acknowledgments section of OpenAI’s blog post introducing the launch of ChatGPT in November, five former Google researchers were recognized.
As of February, OpenAI had hired a total of 93 individuals who had previously worked at Google and Meta combined. The company had approximately 59 former Google employees and 34 members who had worked with Meta in the past, based on reports from LeadGenius and Punks & Pinstripes.
