The talent wars continue to rage across Silicon Valley as companies vie for the best and brightest minds in AI. There is, however, one major AI company that says it is not giving in to pressure.
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said on Bloomberg Podcasts that he doesn’t plan to compete with tech giants like Meta by offering top dollar for talent.
“I don’t think anyone’s matching those things,” Suleyman said of the $100 million signing bonuses Meta has been offering engineers, and the $250 million packages it’s been using to lure top AI researchers.
“I think that Zuck’s taken a particular approach that involves sort of hiring a lot of individuals rather than maybe creating a team, and I don’t really think that’s the right approach,” he said.
Suleyman said he was “very selective” about new hires when he previously worked at DeepMind. At Microsoft, he said he has hired “incrementally,” prioritizing candidates who aligned with the team’s culture and had the right skills, and let go of those who did not.
In Silicon Valley, the top ranks of AI talent are commanding pay packages in the millions.
In June, Meta spent $14.3 billion on an investment in Scale AI — a deal widely seen as an acquihire of its CEO, Alexandr Wang. Google also made a similar move, acquiring the leaders of Windsurf, an AI coding platform. in a deal worth $2.4 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said that Meta tried to lure his employees away with $100 million signing bonuses, which Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth said OpenAI later offered to match.
Even at smaller startups, someone in an AI leadership role can command between $300,000 and $400,000 in base pay, Shawn Thorne, managing director at executive search firm True Search, previously told Business Insider.
Suleyman said “rotation” is part of the industry, given the small pool of talent. He cited Microsoft’s corporate vice president of AI, Amar Subramanya, decamping to Apple earlier this month as an example.
Microsoft recently brought in several new hires from DeepMind and OpenAI, he said.
“There’s certainly no ‘no poach’ agreements, that would not be legal,” he added. “People can go work for whoever they want to work for.”
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