"Since the middle of last year, there have been at least three major AI "acqui-hires" in Silicon Valley. Meta invested more than $14 billion in Scale AI and brought on its CEO, Alexandr Wang; Google spent a cool $2.4 billion to license Windsurf's technology and fold its cofounders and research teams into DeepMind; and Nvidia wagered $20 billion on Groq's inference technology and hired its CEO and other staffers."
"The latest reshuffle began three weeks ago, when OpenAI announced it was rehiring several researchers who had departed less than two years earlier to join Mira Murati's startup, Thinking Machines. At the same time, Anthropic, which was itself founded by former OpenAI staffers, has been poaching talent from the ChatGPT maker. OpenAI, in turn, just hired a former Anthropic safety researcher to be its "head of preparedness.""
"In earlier eras, tech founders and their first employees often stayed onboard until either the lights went out or there was a major liquidity event. But in today's market, where generative AI startups are growing rapidly, equipped with plenty of capital, and prized especially for the strength of their research talent, "you invest in a startup knowing it could be broken up," Munichiello told me."
Major tech firms have recently made huge AI acquisitions and acqui-hires, with Meta investing over $14 billion in Scale AI and hiring its CEO, Google licensing Windsurf for $2.4 billion and integrating its cofounders and research teams into DeepMind, and Nvidia acquiring Groq's inference technology for $20 billion and hiring its CEO and staff. Frontier AI labs are experiencing intense talent reshuffling, with researchers moving between OpenAI, Thinking Machines, and Anthropic. The hiring churn represents the "great unbundling" of startups; founders and early employees no longer consistently stay until exit. Compensation and access to computing resources are major incentives for movement.
Read at WIRED
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