Ex-Openai-Cto Mira Murati wants to help with Thinking Machines Lab company with the development of its own AI models-with top talents who would like Zuckerberg themselves.
The AI battle between the tech giants reaches a new level: Meta-CEO Mark Zuckerberg tried to take over the Ki startup of the former Openai-CTO Mira Murati. After Murati had rejected his takeover offer, Zuckerberg apparently wanted to attract some of the smartest heads from her team at Thinking Machines Lab (TML)-and did not save with the money.
According to a report by Wall Street Journal, Zuckerberg wanted to get the AI elite on board at any price. The mega offer was specifically aimed at Muratis researchers. 12 people from the 50-member team were addressed. All of them are said to have rejected the lucrative offers from Meta, quotes The Economic Times Murati.
The Australian AI expert Andre Tulloch is even said to have been offered a remuneration package of over $ 1 billion (867 million euros) for six years-consisting of stocks, bonuses and salary. An offer that is absurd in this form even in the hypercompetitive silicon valley.
Since the launch of Chatgpt and the increasing influence of Openaai, Meta has felt under increasing pressure in the AI race. With Llama, Metas Open-Source approach for generative AI, the company was able to generate attention-but in the race for top talents, one now seems to be more drastic.
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Mira Murati, who had left Openai in early 2024, is considered one of the most important heads behind GPT-4. Your new company, Thinking Machines, is currently still in stealth mode. However, the fact that Meta wanted to take so much money for their team speaks volumes about its strategic importance.
Why Murati and her team rejected
Despite the gigantic offer, Muratis colleagues decided not to follow Meta's reputation. The reasons for this remain largely speculation. But industry insiders suspect that it is about more than money. Many researchers in the AI scene are now relying on independent research, ethical principles and greater creative freedom-something that is more difficult to realize in a large corporation like Meta.
In addition, Thinking Machines apparently followed an ambitious vision that goes beyond what Meta can currently offer.
The team that everyone wants
Murati was able to get top-class ex-Openai employees on board. This is how her Openai co-founder John Schulman, the former Head of Special Projects Jonathan Lachman and the two ex-VPS Barret Zoph and Lilian little to follow Thinking Machines Lab.
The former Openai Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew, Openai computer scholar Alex Radford and Alexander Kirillov, who had previously worked with Murati on Chatgpt's language mode, are now said to work at TML, as Techcrunch reported.
But out of pure interest in research, the top scientists do not work for Murati. According to US H-1B-VISA data that US companies have to submit, if you hire non-citizen, Thinking Machines LAB Technical employees pays an annual salary between $ 450,000 and $ 500,000 ($ 380,860–423,200).
The average basic content for Techies is $ 462,500 – without bonuses or participations.
In comparison, the average basic content of technical employees at Openaai is around $ 292,000 ($ 247,240). The highest paid position comes to $ 530,000 (448,570 euros), the lowest to $ 200,000 (169,270 euros).
At Anthropic, technical employees earn an average of around $ 387,500 ($ 327,950), whereby the spectrum of $ 300,000 ($ 253,900) is up to $ 690,000 ($ 583,990).
12 billion rating a few months after the establishment
What exactly the startup does is still unknown. There is no product yet. The website only means that TML wants to close the gap between rapidly growing AI skills and the actual understanding of the technology-with a focus on transparency, open science and open source code. The startup wants to regularly publish research results, technical blog posts and code in order to integrate the entire AI community and accelerate research.
In June, Murati was able to convince the first investors with her vision. In a seed round, $ 2 billion (1.7 billion euros) came together, with an evaluation of over $ 12 billion ($ 10 billion). The round of A16Z. Nvidia, Accel, Serviceenow, Cisco, AMD and Jane Street also participated.
That was one of the largest seed financing rounds in the history of Silicon Valley, insider told the Financial Times.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/technologie/das-ki-team-das-zuckerberg-nicht-kaufen-kann/
