Meta Poaches Three Key Researchers from OpenAI for Superintelligence Team

Meta has successfully poached three core researchers from OpenAI's Zurich office, marking a significant step in Mark Zuckerberg's plan to build a "superintelligence" team. This move underscores Zuckerberg's aggressive recruitment strategy, which includes offering top talent compensation packages exceeding 100 million dollars and personally reaching out to potential hires via WhatsApp.

This recruitment drive comes amidst a heated competition for AI talent, with Zuckerberg's strategy proving effective despite public criticism from OpenAI's CEO. The three researchers, Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai, who were instrumental in establishing OpenAI's Zurich office, have now joined Meta's superintelligence team. Their departure from OpenAI, where they had been employed for less than a year, highlights the allure of Meta's offers.

Zuckerberg's recruitment efforts are part of a broader strategy to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI). He has been personally involved in coordinating with top AI researchers through a WhatsApp group named "Recruiting Party" and hosting recruitment dinners at his residences in Palo Alto and Tahoe. This approach has yielded mixed results, with notable successes such as the 14 billion dollar acquisition of Scale AI's CEO, Alexandr Wang, but also failures in securing key figures like OpenAI's co-founders Ilya Sutskever and John Schulman.

The urgency behind Zuckerberg's recruitment drive is partly due to recent setbacks in Meta's AI projects. The release of the Llama 4 model in April was met with disappointment, as developers questioned the integrity of the testing process and the model's performance. This, coupled with the delayed launch of the "Behemoth" model, has put pressure on Meta's AI team to deliver on Zuckerberg's ambitious goals.

Despite these challenges, Meta's aggressive recruitment strategy continues to bear fruit, as evidenced by the recent additions to their superintelligence team. The company's willingness to invest heavily in top talent reflects its commitment to staying at the forefront of AI development.