The “LeBron James” of AI: Zuckerberg’s incredible $250 million offer to recruit a young talent

Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg is willing to spend huge sums , surpassing the contracts of the NBA's top stars, on artificial intelligence talent . The Facebook founder offered researcher Matt Deitke , just 24 years old, a four-year, $250 million contract. The initial offer was $125 million , but Deitke turned it down because he wanted to pursue his own startup.

Zuckerberg met with Deitke in person to convince him, then doubled the initial offer. After consulting with colleagues, the young man accepted . According to his LinkedIn account, he has been working at the tech giant for two months. This episode highlights the escalating salaries in Silicon Valley. The sector's top companies compete for engineers with nine-figure packages , comparable to the contracts of superstars like LeBron James or Stephen Curry .

Meta , OpenAI and Google don't have salary caps , unlike the NBA . This allows the amounts offered to grow without restrictions. They even compete with each other for employees. In fact, Curry's contract with the Golden State Warriors was $35 million less than Deitke's .

In fact, the fight for talent has become so fierce that platforms like TBPN , a streaming channel that covers technology and business as if it were ESPN , broadcasts visual cards with the most impactful labor changes as if it were the NBA.

Jordi Hays , host of TBPN, explained to The New York Times that the pursuit of these signings is similar to the fanaticism surrounding sports leagues. The personalities of the researchers and the size of their contracts capture attention, just as if they were elite athletes.

Meta doesn't just offer money . It also guarantees exclusive computing resources . Some candidates have access to 30,000 GPUs for their research. These graphics processing units are essential for developing advanced AI systems .

Zuckerberg uses "The List," a confidential document containing the names of the industry's top experts. Those chosen typically have:

In private Slack and Discord groups, these talents share deals and strategies for negotiating upward .

Since the launch of ChatGPT In 2022 , AI experts became even more sought-after . Few people in the world have the expertise to handle such complex systems. In addition to technical knowledge, it requires access to expensive infrastructure , something only large companies can offer.

The shortage of professionals caused salaries to skyrocket . In 2012, Google paid US$44 million to three researchers at the University of Toronto. Two years later, Microsoft compared the AI market to that of the NFL . Today, contracts far exceed those figures.

OpenAI has changed its pay structure, but it avoids competing with Meta on a pay scale. Its research director, Mark Chen , stated that those who work there must believe in the project . Still, he admitted that they do make counteroffers when an employee receives an external proposal.

However, not all of Meta's offerings are successful . Some researchers prefer other companies due to Zuckerberg's unclear vision. Despite this, the money and resources Meta offers are tempting for many.

Matt Deitke dropped out of his PhD at the University of Washington . He worked at the Allen Institute for AI, where he led a project called Molmo , a chatbot that combines text , image, and sound . In November, he founded Vercept , a startup with ten employees developing AI agents capable of operating on the internet .

Vercept received $16.5 million in investments , including from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt . After accepting Meta's offer, Vercept's CEO posted on social media: "We look forward to joining Matt on his private island next year." A phrase that sums up the new landscape: the most valuable brains in technology already negotiate like celebrities .