Meta lured Apple's top AI expert with staggering $200M package
What's the story
Meta has successfully recruited Ruoming Pang, a top artificial intelligence (AI) expert from Apple. Pang headed Apple's AI models team and will now be part of Meta's new "superintelligence" group. The social media giant offered him a compensation package worth over $200 million over several years, Bloomberg reported. This is more than what anyone at Apple earns, except for CEO Tim Cook himself.
Recruitment tactics
Building a dream team in the AI space
Meta's massive offer to Pang highlights its commitment to dominating the AI space. The company is building a team of top-tier talent. Most of the compensation packages offered by Meta are tied to stock performance, with employees having to stay for several years and meet specific goals to receive the full payout.
Salary comparison
Apple didn't try to match Meta's offer
Apple is known for being conservative with salaries and bonuses, which explains why it didn't try to match Meta's offer. Such high packages are rare at Apple and usually reserved only for the CEO. The news comes after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed that Meta has been luring his employees with signing bonuses as high as $100 million. Despite the money, many of his team members prefer staying due to their work environment and purpose.
Team profiles
Who else is part of Meta's new team?
Meta's superintelligence team also includes Alexandr Wang, former Scale AI CEO, who is now the chief AI officer. Nat Friedman, ex-GitHub CEO, co-leads the unit with Wang and heads the company's work on AI products and applied research. Daniel Gross, former CEO of AI start-up Safe Superintelligence, leads the AI products division.