Mira Murati, the former chief technology officer of OpenAI, is leading one of Silicon Valley's new ventures, and she's putting her money where her mouth is. After leaving OpenAI in late 2023, Murati quietly launched Thinking Machines Lab, an AI company that's already causing waves, Business Insider reports.
According to Business Insider, the company has been offering some of the most exceptional compensation in the artificial intelligence industry. Two technical employees were hired at $450,000 annually, and another scored a $500,000 base salary. A fourth, who holds the title of machine learning specialist and co-founder, also receives $450,000 per year. These figures only reflect base salary, not bonuses or equity, which are common additional incentives in startups.
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The numbers come from H-1B visa filings, which publicly disclose compensation for non-U.S. residents. While most companies guard salary details, this data offers a rare look behind the curtain, Business Insider says. For context, OpenAI is paying an average salary of just under $300,000 to its technical team. Anthropic, another major AI player, pays closer to $387,000. Thinking Machines Lab's average is a stunning $462,500.
Why Top AI Talent Is Flocking To Murati's Vision
Thinking Machines Lab raised $2 billion in seed funding at a $10 billion valuation before launching a single product. According to Business Insider, Murati has also managed to attract some of the brightest minds in AI. Her team now includes Bob McGrew, OpenAI's former chief research officer, researcher Alec Radford, Chat-GPT co-creators John Schulman, Barret Zoph, and Alexander Kirillov, a collaborator on ChatGPT's voice mode alongside Murati.
Business Insider says that Thinking Machines Lab’s website gives little away, stating only that the company is building systems that are more customizable, general-purpose, and better understood by users. Still, the aggressive hiring and sky-high salaries suggest something much bigger is in play.
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Meta, OpenAI, And The $100 Million Talent War
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently claimed that Meta (NASDAQ:META) has been offering $100 million signing bonuses to lure away top AI talent, Business Insider says. Around the same time, Meta struck a $14.3 billion deal to take a 49% stake in Scale AI, intensifying the race for top researchers.
According to Entrepreneur, six senior OpenAI researchers have already made the jump to Meta, joining the tech giant's newly formed superintelligence team. Among them are Shuchao Bi, a co-creator of ChatGPT's voice mode, and Shengjia Zhao, who played a key role in synthetic data research and helped build ChatGPT itself.
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This wave of departures adds pressure to a talent war already driven by record-high compensation offers. While OpenAI grapples with the losses, leadership is taking action behind the scenes, Entrepreneur says. In a memo sent to staff by Chief Research Officer Mark Chen, OpenAI outlined plans to "recalibrate" salaries and explore new ways to keep top contributors engaged. Altman is said to be personally involved in reshaping the company's strategy to stay competitive.
Thinking Machines Lab is establishing itself as a major player in a competitive landscape defined by soaring salaries and high-stakes talent moves. With a founder deeply involved in the creation of ChatGPT and compensation packages that rival the industry’s top offers, the company is taking a seat as a central force in the evolving AI ecosystem.
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