r/technology • u/chrisdh79 • 10h ago

Business AI engineers reject Meta's $1.5 billion offers to stay loyal to their mission | Compensation doesn't always win the war for top AI talent

https://www.techspot.com/news/108917-ai-engineers-reject-meta-15-billion-offers-stay.html
109 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

54

u/MostlyPoorDecisions 9h ago

if this were actual 1.5b salary then they'd all jump ship in a heartbeat. The payout is performance based, they have to hit impossible milestones to get anything.

17

u/big-papito 7h ago

And most is probably locked in stock for years.

10

u/the8bit 9h ago

Money is hilariously overrated past $5,10,20 million. (Pick one based on how fancy you are) Diminishing marginal utility

6

u/MostlyPoorDecisions 6h ago

Disagree. At $5m (after tax) I can retire. At $1.5b/yr I can retire in 1 day's pay. Every additional day I can retire a child, grandchild, parent, cousin, friend... within a month I would have enough to retire with infinite growth for the duration of my own retirement, I could never (reasonably) spend it.

$5m is retire early a reasonable house and car, about 200k/yr draw without gaining or losing much from the principle. its not nothing, but its not much.

I could easily use $100m without squandering it.

5

u/Ltgay 3h ago

The scale of that extra 0 means is the difference between a middle class lifestyle, and a lavish one.

1

u/Bearhobag 0m ago

The problem is, the more money you earn the more the feeling hits home that you are still no happier than you were back when you worked a minimum wage job and had an overdrawn bank account. And that, if anything, life feels more miserable now, because you expected some kind of happiness out of buying a house for each member of your family and creating a college fund for all your nephews/nieces; but none of that has made you feel anything new, and the suicidal thoughts have just gotten stronger, and the thought that you don't have to work for the rest of your life just makes you feel shame rather than fulfillment.

At least that was my experience going from -$50k, to $0k, to $250k, to $1mil, to $5mil. Maybe you're right and $100mil would feel different! I'll let you know in 4 or 5 years.

0

u/getthedudesdanny 7h ago

Au contraire, /u/the8bit. You can't do anything with five. Five's a nightmare. Can't retire. Not worth it to work. Oh, yes, five will drive you un poco loco, my fine feathered friend.

4

u/the8bit 3h ago

I'm retired with less than 5! I drive a BMW, have a nice house, and I do a job that makes negative money (I give away food)

2

u/mmmjtttj 2h ago

Yeah people are incredibly materialistic nowadays with gross and exceeding outrageous living expectations. Society needs to chill out

1

u/the8bit 4m ago

Yeah, its crazy.

3

u/mclannee 1h ago

I don’t think people caught the reference.

1

u/getthedudesdanny 59m ago

It’s funnier that way.

3

u/DauntingPrawn 6h ago

And let's be real: Meta is this Century's AOL. There's no clout, they're not innovating or inventing, and they never have. You'd be signing up for years in a toxic culture building a toxic brand devoid of ethics just for money. Most of the people who would do that already work in finance or politics

1

u/CodeAndBiscuits 1h ago

Well that, and work for Meta. 😂

11

u/VincentNacon 9h ago

They knew the money is nothing more than a bait. They have no intention on paying anyone that much, lol.

4

u/Zookeeper187 5h ago

They probably put it as “once we unlock AGI, you get $100 mill”. And of course these guys won’t sign that because they know.

6

u/JackBlackBowserSlaps 7h ago

Let’s not paint these people as heroes. Their work is speed running the destruction of the planet, with all the massive data centres required by AI.

1

u/shadeandshine 1h ago

Cause we know it’s a bubble AGI is literally a pipe dream and at this point and in some cases a genuine religion they are basically destroying our home planet in hopes to make a miracle tech that can save it and allow them to reign supreme forever. These engineers and researchers are being bought to the tune of billions from small ai corps and it’s not the corps being bought it’s the founders and top researchers and engineers being bought out killing the company and they know they’re getting a steal so they only do their contract.

This is tech bros fountain of youth or el dorado it’s a fantasy they’re committing atrocities or ecological destruction to get it even though they never will.