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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on something of a hiring spree lately, trying to staff up Meta\u2019s new superintelligence team <\/a>with top-tier AI researchers from competing labs. To work on a team led by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang<\/a> and at a desk physically near Zuckerberg, Meta has reportedly offered employees from OpenAI and Google DeepMind compensation packages worth upwards of $100 million<\/a>.<\/p>\n OpenAI CEO Sam Altman confirmed those reports on a podcast with his brother, Jack Altman, which was published on Tuesday.<\/a> However, the OpenAI CEO noted that Zuckerberg\u2019s recruiting efforts have been largely unsuccessful and made sure to throw a few more digs at Meta in the process.<\/p>\n \u201c[Meta has] started making these, like, giant offers to a lot of people on our team,\u201d Sam Altman said on the podcast. \u201cYou know, like, $100 million signing bonuses, more than that [in] compensation per year [\u2026] I\u2019m really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take him up on that.\u201d<\/p>\n The OpenAI CEO said he believed his employees made the assessment that OpenAI had a better chance of achieving AGI and may one day be the more valuable company. He also said he believes Meta\u2019s focus on high compensation packages for employees, rather than the mission of delivering AGI, would likely not create a great culture.<\/p>\n Meta reportedly tried to poach<\/a> one of OpenAI\u2019s lead researchers, Noam Brown, as well as Google\u2019s AI architect, Koray Kavukcuoglu. However, both efforts were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n Sam Altman went on to say he believes OpenAI\u2019s culture of innovation has been a major key to its success, and that Meta\u2019s \u201ccurrent AI efforts have not worked as well as they hoped.\u201d The OpenAI CEO said he respects many things about Meta but noted he doesn\u2019t \u201cthink they\u2019re a company that\u2019s great at innovation.\u201d Later in the podcast, Altman said he believes it\u2019s not enough for companies to catch up on AI \u2014 they have to truly innovate to stay ahead.<\/p>\n The OpenAI CEO\u2019s comments highlight some of the challenges that Meta has to overcome in order to build out a successful AI superintelligence lab. Besides bringing on Wang, Meta announced last week that it invested significantly<\/a> in Wang\u2019s former company, Scale AI. The company has also reportedly nabbed a few star AI researchers<\/a>, such as Google DeepMind\u2019s Jack Rae and Sesame AI\u2019s Johan Schalkwyk. But there\u2019s more work ahead.<\/p>\n In the coming year, Meta will have to staff up its new AI team while OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind operate at full speed. In the coming months, OpenAI is expected to release an open AI model <\/a>that\u2019s likely to set Meta back in the AI race even further.<\/p>\n Later on in the podcast, Sam Altman described an AI-powered social media feed that seems likely to encroach on Meta\u2019s apps. The OpenAI CEO said he\u2019s curious about exploring a social media app that uses AI to deliver custom feeds based on what users want, rather than the default, algorithmic feed that exists on traditional social media apps.<\/p>\n OpenAI is reportedly working on a social networking app<\/a> internally. Meanwhile, Meta is experimenting with an AI-powered social network through its Meta AI app. However, it seems that some users are confused by the Meta AI app and have shared some hyperpersonal chats with the broader world<\/a>.<\/p>\n Whether AI-powered social networks take off remains to be seen. In the meantime, Zuckerberg and Sam Altman seem poised to butt heads over the AI talent race.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n