Meta spends a lot on AI talent, but will it pay off?

Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are spending billions of dollars on top talent to compensate for their position in the generative artificial intelligence race, raising doubts about their wisdom.

Openai boss Sam Altman recently lamented that Meta is offering a $100 million bonus to engineers jumping on Zuckerberg’s ship.

Several Openai employees reportedly won the meta and joined Scale AI founder and former CEO Alexandr Wang at Menlo Park-based Tech Titan.

Meta paid more than $14 billion for a 49% stake in scale AI in mid-June, carrying Wang as part of the deal.

AI labels data to better train AI models for businesses, governments and labs.

“Meta has confirmed our strategic partnership and investment in scale AI,” a Meta spokesman told AFP.

“As part of this, we will deepen our work on generating data for AI models and doing it together, and Alexandr Wang will be joining Meta to tackle our superintelligence efforts.”

US media reports that Meta’s recruitment efforts are targeted at Openai co-founder Ilya Sutskever. Google Rival Perplexity AI and Hot AI Video Startup Runway.

Meta’s Chief Zuckerberg has been reported to have sounded the accusation himself due to concerns that Meta would delay rivals in the generated AI race.

The latest version of the Meta AI model, Llama, has finished behind heavyweight rivals in code writing rankings on the LM Arena platform, where users can rate the technology.

Meta is consolidating recruitment into a new team dedicated to developing “super intelligence.” This is AI that surpasses people when it comes to thinking and understanding.

‘mercenary’

Tech blogger Zvi Moshowitz felt that Zuckerberg had to do something about the situation and hoped that Meta would succeed in attracting hot talent, but questioned how well it would work.

“Going to pure mercenary has extreme drawbacks…and a company that has products that no one wants to tackle,” Moshowitz told AFP.

“I don’t think it will work, but I think there will be fewer llamas.”

Meta’s stock is approaching a new high with the overall value of the company, which is approaching $2 trillion, but some investors are beginning to worry.

According to Ted Mortonson, Baird strategist, institutional investors are concerned about how well Meta manages cash flow and reserves.

“Now there’s no checks and balance,” Zuckerberg can freely do it.

The possibility that meta will cash out by using AI to spin profitable online advertising machines is strong appeal, but “people have really big concerns about spending,” Mortonson said.

MetaExecutive has laid out the vision to streamline the advertising process from simple creation to smarter targeting using AI, bypassing creative agencies and providing turnkey solutions to brands.

According to CFRA analyst Angelo Zino, AI talent hires are long-term investments that are unlikely to affect the profitability of the meta in the near future.

“Even so, we need people on board right now and we need to be proactive in making an investment ready for that stage,” Zino said.

According to The New York Times, Zuckerberg is considering shifting away from the Llama of Meta, and is probably using competing AI models instead.

Professor Mehmet Kanayaz of Pennsylvania State University considers the possibility that Mehme could succeed with AI agents tailored to specific tasks on the platform.

“Even companies like Meta have no most advanced LLMS can succeed as long as their models work well within a particular market segment,” Kanayaz said.

©2025 AFP