News Analysis
Imagine trying to buy talent with a check so large it could fund a small country.
That’s essentially what Meta attempted when it allegedly dangled $100 million signing bonuses and nine-figure salaries in front of OpenAI’s top engineers, according to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The pitch was simple: Join us and get paid big today to work on the pursuit of artificial general intelligence (AGI).
What happened? Crickets, at least according to Altman. But a trio of OpenAI researchers based in Switzerland announced they were indeed taking an offer to join Meta — and they weren’t getting $100 million apiece to do so.
hey all, couple quick notes:
— Lucas Beyer (bl16) (@giffmana) June 26, 2025
1) yes, we will be joining Meta.
2) no, we did not get 100M sign-on, that's fake news.
Excited about what's ahead though, will share more in due time!
cc @__kolesnikov__ and @XiaohuaZhai.
It’s easy to assume, especially in a tech culture that often celebrates compensation packages like trophies, that there’s a price at which anyone would walk. But the Meta-OpenAI saga tells a different story.
While big money gets headlines, it doesn’t guarantee what matters most in this race: a team that is dedicated and sticks around long enough to help you win.
Can Cash Buy Innovation?
Meta’s game plan isn’t hard to follow once you have the requisite funds. The company is gunning for first-mover advantage in the artificial intelligence (AI) space, especially in consumer AI and, more broadly, AGI.
The thinking goes: Whoever lands the best minds first can set the rules, define the standards and scoop up the lion’s share of the value. First in means first to dominate, right? You just need the people.
Well, maybe. But history has a funny way of humbling the overconfident and early. Remember Netscape? It had a head start in web browsing and still lost to Microsoft. MySpace seemed unstoppable until Facebook ate its lunch. And while OpenAI popularized LLMs, it wasn’t what developed the critical transformer architecture. Google did, which, like Meta, is now also playing catch up.
First movers aren’t always able to capitalize on their position in a sustainable way. And when your first-mover push is by people there only to collect a fat paycheck rather than dedication to a mission, it’s unlikely to succeed. Top OpenAI engineers already have compensation packages most people only dream of. If they wanted a big payday, they could hop on 101 and make it happen.
How sustainable can the organization be if it’s mostly about the size of your wallet, not the saliency of your vision? If your talent can work almost anywhere they want for ungodly amounts of money anyway, what good is a pitch with more money as the only advantage?
Big Bonuses: Short-Term Solutions for Long-Term Challenges
This talent acquisition technique fits into a broader pattern that’s played out in other industries, usually with the same shaky results.
Take Wall Street. In 2024 alone, bankers in New York pulled down a record-high $47.5 billion in bonuses. The average payout? About $244,700. Sounds great, right? Yet turnover stayed high. Culture didn’t improve. And those massive payouts inflated cost structures without delivering long-term stability.
Or look at tech-forward trading firms such as Jane Street and Hudson River Trading. They throw down close to $450,000 for fresh-out-of-school quants. These packages attract top-tier math talent. Retaining that talent? That’s another matter. The financial industry isn’t known for keeping top bankers, investors and tech talent for very long.
The same goes for big tech. Google, Apple and Meta all hand out massive compensation packages for senior engineers, but retention is a constant battle. Stripe and OpenAI? Yes, they still have to pay big. That’s the cost of entry. But they’ve also leaned harder on mission, equity and purpose.
That’s no guarantee, either. The Zurich-based OpenAI team moving to Meta was poached by Altman and team six months ago from Google’s DeepMind. Hiring in AI is notoriously difficult, but keeping talent seems like the more immediate challenge.
Big pay can open doors, no question. But on its own, it can never be a replacement for a long-term vision, inspiring leadership and a meaningful mission for the talent who has all the power right now. If the culture doesn’t click or the work doesn’t inspire, no number on a paycheck can paper over the cracks.
The Bonus Bubble: Unsustainable and Destabilizing
There’s another problem with this approach: It feeds a dangerous cycle. As these bonus offers balloon, they raise expectations and costs across the board.
We’ve seen this movie before, such as in finance before the 2008 crash. Compensation outpaced value creation, and when the bubble burst, it ended poorly. Tech could be inching toward the same cliff if companies keep mistaking big checks for long-term strategy.
When you build a team on paychecks rather than purpose, you’re basically stacking kindling for the next rush on talent. People who join for the money will leave for the money.
Not only that, morale can take a hit with this approach. Resentment festers among existing employees who see newcomers bagging giant bonuses. Before you know it, the culture’s cracked, and no one’s sticking around long enough to build anything meaningful.
The Real Playbook for Winning Talent in the AI Race
So what’s the way forward? Should Meta simply give up?
Far from it. Instead, any company recruiting in an environment with a heavily tilted advantage toward talent should be looking at a more sustainable path forward:
- Invest in inspiring leadership. Maybe the biggest indictment of Meta’s strategy is that it put Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg on the recruiting trail with these big checks, and they still failed. Great leadership gives talent a reason to jump (and ultimately stay) beyond the paycheck.
- Create transparency and purpose. If everyone is paying top talent top dollar, they are probably looking at other elements of the job to determine their interest and commitment. Show employees where the company is headed and how their work contributes to that vision. People are more loyal when they see how they fit into the bigger picture.
- Offer long-term growth and equity. Give people meaningful ownership, development and a work environment that values their ideas and time. This seems to be one of the areas that OpenAI has succeeded with its top engineers. Belief in the mission and your place in it is a powerful retainer of talent, especially when all the incentives align with staying and completing your key goals.
Escalating the bonus structure beyond anything you see outside of major sports leagues is, at best, a cash drain and a losing long-term strategy.
Lead, Don’t Just Bid
Meta’s cash-heavy play for AI talent is a headline grabber, no doubt.
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But in the long run, talent wars aren’t won in the bank and investment accounts of talented engineers. They’re won in the hearts and minds of the people who choose to stay. These are still people with their own ambitions, dreams and goals that are almost never about just money.
The companies that will shape the future of AI are the ones that give their teams a reason to believe, a reason to build and a reason to stay.
Money will always be part of the equation and you have to meet them there at a certain level.
But meaning and leadership? That’s what truly seals the deal.
Editor's Note: Read more on talent acquisition and retention trends below:
- A Future-Ready Strategy Needs Talent Intelligence Today — Workforce planning has become an HR priority, as AI and new technologies change the way we work. Talent intelligence is one potential aid.
- Get These Basics of Career Pathing Right. Employee Retention Will Follow — Half of U.S. workers are planning to leave their employers this year. Some tips to avoid being dumped.
- The Hidden Cost of Losing Employees — Losing employees is an inevitable part of business. But organizations that fail to plan for the full impact of these departures will suffer.
