Mark Zuckerberg is currently on a notable hiring spree, actively recruiting elite talent from the AI sector to establish Meta’s Superintelligence Labs. This strategic move aims to rival tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. As Meta seeks to consolidate its AI initiatives, the competition for top-tier professionals in Silicon Valley intensifies.

Among the most high-profile recruits is Ruoming Pang from Apple, who joined Meta with a remarkable $200 million compensation package. Another significant hire is Trapit Bansal from OpenAI, whose deal amounts to $100 million. In Indian Rupees, Pang’s offer exceeds ₹1,600 crore, while Bansal’s is valued at roughly ₹800 crore.

A closer look at the compensation structure shows that the Superintelligence Labs at Meta offers some of the highest salaries in the corporate world, surpassing even CEO roles at major financial institutions. Much of this handsome compensation is tied to performance metrics and long-term commitment, indicating that employees might forfeit a portion of their earnings if they depart early or if the company’s stock underperforms.

Compensation for MSL hires typically includes a base salary, a signing bonus, and substantial equity in Meta, constituting the bulk of the financial package. Particularly for recruits leaving startups with significant equity stakes, signing bonuses are often increased to compensate for potential losses.

The equity component generally comes with specific conditions—Meta ties payoffs to performance targets, such as achieving a certain percentage increase in stock price annually. Many new recruits also sign contracts with longer vesting periods compared to the industry standard of four years.

Here’s a summary of the key new talents composing Meta’s AI team:

Alexandr Wang

Former CEO of Scale AI, Wang has been appointed as the chief AI officer of the new division.

Nat Friedman

The ex-GitHub CEO will co-lead the unit alongside Wang, focusing on AI products and applied research. He is also a co-founder of NFDG, which has invested in prominent startups.

Daniel Gross

Previous CEO of Safe Superintelligence, Gross is set to lead the AI products division.

Ruoming Pang

Previously leading Apple’s Foundation Models team, Pang joined Meta with a lucrative compensation package.

Trapit Bansal

Having joined OpenAI in 2022, Bansal played a crucial role in developing advanced reasoning models.

Shuchao Bi

With over a decade at Google and YouTube, Bi co-founded YouTube Shorts and contributed to optimizing Google Ads with deep learning models.

Huiwen Chang

Chang worked at Google before joining OpenAI in 2023 and is a co-creator of OpenAI’s multimodal model, GPT-4o.

Ji Lin

Also a recent OpenAI recruit, Lin contributed to advanced multimodal reasoning systems.

Joel Pobar

Pobar came from Anthropic, where he managed large-scale language model pipelines and previously had an extensive tenure at Meta.

Jack Rae

The pre-training technical lead at Google DeepMind for Gemini has joined as Meta’s new recruit.

Hongyu Ren

Ren co-created several o-series and GPT-4o models at OpenAI and has taken part in leading post-training efforts.

Johan Schalkwyk

A former Google Fellow, Schalkwyk oversaw significant research and product integrations in speech AI and has joined Meta as a Voice Lead.

Pei Sun

Sun previously worked on advanced models for Google DeepMind’s Gemini and was instrumental in developing perception models for Waymo.

Jiahui Yu

Yu led the perception team at a prior AI startup and co-created several influential models at OpenAI.

Shengjia Zhao

Zhao contributed to ChatGPT and other notable models as a research scientist at OpenAI.

The term “superintelligence” is gaining traction among tech leaders, as companies like OpenAI and Google aspire to develop “artificial general intelligence” (AGI). AGI refers to machines capable of mimicking any human cognitive function—a goal considered ambitious and elusive due to its vague definition.

Silicon Valley experts are increasingly conversing about creating superintelligence, a term that denotes machines exceeding human cognitive capabilities. Though loosely defined, it outlines a future where AI not only replicates but surpasses human intelligence.

Meta’s aggressive recruitment strategy highlights the fierce competition within the tech industry to secure top talent in AI. As the company assembles a formidable team, the implications for AI development could be profound, potentially shaping the future of technology.