As Mark Zuckerberg Wired learned that staff provided new research talent salaries to Meta’s new Super Smart Lab, up to $300 million in four years and total compensation for the first year exceeded $100 million.
Sources said Meta made at least 10 amazing offers to Openai employees. A senior researcher was advertised as the role of chief scientist, but rejected it based on a direct knowledge of the negotiations. The compensation package includes equity, but in the first year, the stock is immediately vested, the source said.
“That’s how much work I need to work at Meta,” said an Openai employee, speaking with the link on anonymous condition because they have no right to talk about the company publicly. Other employees said they are weighing the potential impact of the money against the dollar that may have on dollar compared to OpenAI. Some people believe that the impact in Openai will be greater.
“These statements are untrue – the scale and structure of these compensation packages are distorted everywhere,” said Metta spokesman Andy Stone. “Some people choose to greatly exaggerate what happened for their purposes.”
A senior engineer who spoke with Wired confirmed that the salary at Meta is about $850,000, an impressive amount compared to the packages currently offered. According to user data submitted by LevelSs.fyi, the engineer earns $1.54 million a year above the compensation band (in multi-words) of the engineer.
Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth said that not everyone was getting a $100 million offer last week during the Q&A with employees. “Look, you guys, the market is hot. Not that hot. OK? So that’s just a lie.” “We’re in a few leadership roles and these guys really have to be conservative.” He added that the $100 million is not a signing bonus, but “all these different things,” noting that Openai is against the offer.
As a point of comparison, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella received a total salary of $79.1 million in 2024, mostly in stocks, according to the company’s financial documents. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made $39.4 million in the same year (again inventory).
Mark Zuckerberg introduced the new super smart team to meta staff on Monday. Alexandr Wang, who was formerly CEO of Scale AI, is now chief AI officer at Meta, Zuckerberg said. He joined Nat Friedman, who previously led Github. Wang and Friedman lie Zuckerberg, together called Meta Super Smart Lab. The company did not name the chief scientist or chief research officer as part of the announcement. Neither Wang nor Friedman were considered researchers in the traditional sense. No OpenAI employee heading to Meta received a $300 million offer, according to sources familiar with the contract.
