Meta Attracts Three Prominent OpenAI Researchers to Superintelligence Team

Meta* has recruited three researchers from OpenAI to join its Superintelligence team. According to The Wall Street Journal, Lukas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, who previously worked at OpenAI’s Zürich branch, are now part of Meta*.

The terms under which Beyer, Kolesnikov, and Zhai made the transition to Meta* are not disclosed. However, earlier, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta* had attempted to lure OpenAI employees away with offers of $100 million bonuses and even more substantial annual compensation packages.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally enlisting experts for a new Superintelligence team dedicated to groundbreaking AI research. Reports indicate that the team will consist of approximately 50 individuals. Insiders say that Zuckerberg has been communicating via WhatsApp with hundreds of leading AI researchers through a group chat called «Hiring Party,» as well as meeting in person in Palo Alto and Lake Tahoe.

Additionally, Meta* is actively acquiring promising AI startups, one of which is Scale AI, into which the company has invested $14 billion. As part of this deal, Scale AI’s CEO Alexander Wang and several other startup employees have joined Meta* to contribute to the development of the Llama language model family.

Previously, Meta* poached top engineers from several tech firms, including Microsoft and Google DeepMind. According to WSJ, the company also showed interest in acquiring the startup Perplexity AI, although it was not the sole contender for the purchase.

_{*Meta Platforms is recognized as an extremist organization, and its activities are banned in Russia.}