As Meta races to catch up in the generative AI race, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been aggressively courting top researchers—sometimes with offers worth up to $1.5 billion. One of his prime targets was Andrew Tulloch, co-founder of Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati. Despite the massive package, Tulloch declined—and none of Murati’s 50 employees defected.
This isn’t an isolated case. In Silicon Valley’s escalating battle for AI talent, loyalty to visionary leaders like Murati, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, and Safe Superintelligence’s Ilya Sutskever is proving more powerful than money. These founders foster tight-knit, mission-driven cultures that bind teams together, often making them resistant to poaching.
Murati’s Thinking Machines has attracted more than 20 ex-OpenAI colleagues, including ChatGPT co-creator John Schulman, and is working on multimodal AI designed for natural human interaction. Anthropic’s founders remain intact since its launch, while Sutskever’s SSI keeps a low profile to deter recruiting attempts.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and former CTO Mira Murati, now founder of Thinking Machines Lab, both prefer flat reporting hierarchies.
Zuckerberg has recruited over 100 OpenAI employees but with limited success. Many choose smaller, mission-focused companies over Big Tech, wary of commercial priorities like ad-driven products. In the new AI talent wars, vision, culture, and trust increasingly outweigh even billion-dollar offers.
See What’s Next in Tech With the Fast Forward Newsletter
Tweets From @varindiamag
Nothing to see here - yet
When they Tweet, their Tweets will show up here.
