$100M Signing Bonus: Silicon Valley Pay Reaches Mind-Boggling New Heights

Silicon Valley companies have long been willing to pay top dollar to people they believe can help them topple the competition and innovate the future of tech. And that's apparently never been more true — the CEO of ChatGPT's parent company says his competitors have been willing to shell out over $100 million for his company's top talent.

In a podcast released this week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman discussed how his company, one of the leaders in artificial intelligence, is handling what's been dubbed the "AI talent war." He said unspecified competitors are willing to pay enormous sums when they're trying to poach his employees.

"They started making these giant offers to a lot of people on our team — like $100 million signing bonuses," he said. And those offers also included annual compensation "more than that," he added.

Despite the mind-boggling offers, Altman says his core team has stayed loyal. "I'm really happy that, at least so far, none of our best people have decided to take them up on that," he said.

Continuing his comments on "Uncapped with Jack Altman," his brother's podcast, Altman said Meta, Facebook's parent company, considers OpenAI its biggest competitor. And while Meta has deep pockets, its investment hasn't yet yielded results, Altman said.

"Their current AI efforts have not worked as well as they've hoped, and I respect them for being aggressive and continuing to try new things," he said.

The huge sums being thrown around illustrate just how intense the race has become to hire the people who are building the future of artificial intelligence. Tech giants like Meta and Google, along with startups, are all competing for a relatively small pool of talent who have the expertise necessary to create the most advanced AI tools.

And that's because rater than focusing on the apps, services or gadgets of yesteryear, today's tech industry is focused on the idea that innovations in AI will help ensure cultural and economic dominance.