Meta made some big splashes in the AI talent war, but the tech giant's AI chief isn't thrilled by the narrative that his team is a bunch of mercenaries.
"This is one of, I think, the larger, I would say, like narrative violations or maybe like differences between external perception and what the day-to-day inside is like actually," Wang told tech journalists Ashlee Vance and Kylie Robison during an interview for their "Core Memory" podcast that was posted on Wednesday.
Vance asked Wang about the reputation that Meta's SuperIntelligence Lab is composed of top AI researchers who were lured away from rival companies, at least in part, thanks to the very generous terms Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his team put on the table. Top AI researchers reportedly received $100 million offers.
"I think it's like an incorrect assumption to think that, like the researchers are just money motivated or anything," Wang said. "And for most of them actually like, you know, the financial prospects of them staying wherever they were look very good as well, like looked very, very, very strong as well."
Instead of money, Wang said Meta's recruits were motivated by other factors, including the prospect of having a large amount of compute at their disposal. Business Insider has previously reported how dedicated compute is a big part of leading tech companies' recruitment pitch.
