OpenAI Recruiters Are Trying to Lure Google AI Employees With a $10 Million Compensation Package

• OpenAI wants to lure Google researchers with $10 million pay packets, The Information reported.
• The company has already hired dozens of former Google and Meta employees to work at the AI firm.
• OpenAI is in talks for another employee share sale this year that could value it at $86 billion.

OpenAI has just escalated its talent war with Google.

The AI firm is trying to attract some of Google’s best researchers through a pay packet worth millions, as well as top tech resources including AI accelerator chips to run tests, The Information reported. 

OpenAI is exploring options for an employee share sale that values the company at $86 billion, Bloomberg reported last month. 

If its recruiters are successful in enticing top Google AI researchers, they could benefit from compensation packages of between $5 million and $10 million after the latest share sale, according to The Information. 

The company closed a share sale in April that saw it valued between $27 billion and $29 billion, per TechCrunch. 

The firm behind ChatGPT has already won over talent from Google and Meta to help work on its AI chatbot. Five former Google researchers were listed in the acknowledgments section of OpenAI’s blog post announcing the launch of ChatGPT last November. 

OpenAI has hired at least 93 people who have previously worked at Google and Meta. The company had around 59 former Google employees and about 34 ex-Meta staff working for it as of February, according to data from LeadGenius and Punks & Pinstripes.

A job listing for a research engineer with OpenAI’s superalignment team shows an annual salary range of between $245,000 and $450,000 and states that its total compensation includes “generous equity” and other benefits.  

Jan Leike, the company’s head of superalignment, a team that is focused on making its AI systems align with human interests, said in August that the team is hiring research engineers, scientists and managers. 

Leiki said on an episode of “The 80,000 Hours Podcast” that the company is looking for strong candidates who have a passion for making AI safer, who can think critically, understand machine learning and know how to code.

OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.