Meta Hires Former Apple Employee. Salary? Over $200 Million

According to Bloomberg, this salary is in line with the salaries of other key hires in Meta's new superintelligence team, which aims to create AI systems that can perform tasks as well as or better than humans.

The team currently includes former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and AI startup founder Daniel Gross. Meta hired Alexander Wang, co-founder of Scale AI, as its chief artificial intelligence officer, taking a 49% stake in his $14.3 billion company.

Meta's dedicated superintelligence team offers very high salaries

Meta's superintelligence group offers some of the highest salaries among corporate positions, including CEO positions at some of the world's largest banks. However, much of the money is tied up for performance purposes and unlocked based on years of loyalty, meaning it may not be fully paid if employees leave prematurely or if the stock doesn't perform well.

Compensation packages for those employed at Meta Superintelligence Laboratories, or MSL , consist of a base salary, a signing bonus, and Meta shares, with the shares being the most important part of the package. The salary and signing bonus are often substantial cash payments.

In cases where a recruit would have to give up a significant stake in a startup to join Meta, the signing bonus could be higher to compensate for the lost opportunity, the people familiar with the matter said.

For the stock portion, Meta typically includes a provision in its contracts that payouts are tied to specific metrics, such as Meta's stock increasing by at least a certain percentage in a given year, employees say. In many cases, new employees agree to sign contracts that extend beyond the typical four-year vesting period, they added.

OpenAI founder reveals behind-the-scenes battle for talent in Silicon Valley

Details about the pay package structure emerged after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shocked Silicon Valley by describing the war for AI talent with Meta on a podcast with his brother.

Altman said in June that Meta offered his employees signing bonuses of up to $100 million, as well as even higher overall compensation packages, to join the company's superintelligence team. Altman suggested that his employees chose to stay at OpenAI because the company had developed a better culture and reputation for innovation.

Despite Altman's comments, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has already successfully hired more than 10 OpenAI researchers, as well as top researchers and engineers from Anthropic, Google, and other startups.

Amid the escalating war for talent, Altman said Tuesday that he hasn't spoken with Zuckerberg since the Meta co-founder launched his bid to acquire OpenAI's top talent. However, he expects to meet at the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, this week and "looks forward to it."

In June, Meta held talks with Perplexity AI , a web search engine that uses large AI language models, about a possible acquisition. The two companies failed to reach an agreement, which was seen as another obstacle for Mark Zuckerberg to catch up in the AI ​​race.