Marc Benioff has said that Salesforce will match the salary of any OpenAI researcher who quits following the ouster of Sam Altman.
The CEO of Salesforce offered to match the full cash and OTE (open trade equity) of researchers who quit OpenAI “to immediately join” the Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team under Silvio Savarese. His offer came after more than 700 of OpenAI’s 770 employees signed a letter threatening to quit unless the board of OpenAI resigns and the company reinstates ousted CEO Sam Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman.
The board of OpenAI, the company behind hit product ChatGPT, on Friday pushed out its high-profile CEO Altman, sending shock waves across the tech industry. On Monday, more than 700 OpenAI employees signed a letter threatening to resign, saying they were “unable to work for or with people that lack competence, judgment and care for our mission and employees.”
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff then put out a post offering to match the compensation of any OpenAI researcher who quits, but found surprisingly few takers.
“Salesforce will match any OpenAI researcher who has tendered their resignation full cash & equity OTE to immediately join our Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team under Silvio Savarese. Send me your cv directly to ceo@salesforce.com,” he tweeted.
OpenAI’s Tony Wu called Benioff’s offer super generous, but said he would stick with Sam Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman till the end.
Another OpenAI employee, Steven Heidel, received a direct offer from Benioff which he rejected with a hilarious response. “Listen, I love Slack but the company that builds tableau isn't going to build AGI,” Heidel wrote.
Boris Power, Head of Applied Research at OpenAI, said that employees were not quitting because of compensation.
Microsoft has rushed in to attract some of the biggest names that left OpenAI, including co-founder Brockman, to keep key talent out of the hands of rivals including Alphabet's Google and Amazon.com while seeking to stabilize the startup in which it invested billions of dollars. Microsoft has hired OpenAI co-founders Altman and Brockman to head up a “new advanced AI research team.”
(With inputs from Reuters)
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