The AI talent war is heating up. Meta just poached four high-ranking OpenAI researchers—key minds behind GPT-4 and future open-source models. This shakeup signals a growing tug-of-war in the race for artificial general intelligence (AGI).
Key Takeaways:
- Four senior OpenAI researchers have joined Meta’s new superintelligence team.
- Departures include leads on GPT-4, post-training, and multimodal models.
- Mark Zuckerberg’s AGI ambitions are pushing Meta into aggressive hiring mode.
- OpenAI claims top talent still hasn’t accepted Meta’s massive bonus offers.
- Comes shortly after OpenAI lost more staff from its Zurich office.
In a bold and telling move in the ongoing AI arms race, Meta has poached four key researchers from OpenAI, according to two sources familiar with the matter. This group of experts—Shengjia Zhao, Shuchao Bi, Jiahui Yu, and Hongyu Ren—has reportedly left OpenAI to join Meta’s newly formed superintelligence team.
Their sudden exit was first spotted when their Slack profiles at OpenAI were deactivated. The news, originally reported by The Information, signals an escalation in tech’s high-stakes quest to dominate artificial general intelligence (AGI).
While neither company has publicly commented, the timing of the departures has raised eyebrows. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been actively recruiting from rival AI labs, including OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic, to accelerate his company’s AGI development efforts.
Earlier this month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that Meta had made what he described as “giant offers”—including $100 million signing bonuses—in attempts to lure OpenAI staff. “None of our best people have decided to take them up on that,” Altman claimed. Still, insiders at OpenAI confirmed that such offers were indeed made.
Among the four, Hongyu Ren played a pivotal role as the post-training lead for OpenAI’s o3 and o4-mini models. He was also working on an open-source model scheduled for release this summer. Shengjia Zhao, a deep learning specialist who helped build GPT-4, joined OpenAI in mid-2022. Meanwhile, Jiahui Yu—a former Google DeepMind researcher—and Shuchao Bi, a manager in OpenAI’s multimodal division, round out the departing team.
Their exit compounds a rough patch for OpenAI, which also saw three researchers leave its Zurich office recently, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Meta’s aggressive push comes as the company looks to reinvent itself as a serious contender in foundational AI, shifting from a consumer-focused platform to a major force in AI research and development.
For Zuckerberg, hiring this talent isn’t just about product innovation—it’s about strategic positioning. As AGI development progresses from concept to competition, who builds it first may control the future of intelligence.