(Credit: Emily Forlini)
Meta has been hunting for top AI talent over the past few months, and its latest target is Ruoming Pang, the leader of Apple's 100-person foundation models team.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered Pang a pay package worth tens of millions of dollars, according to Bloomberg. In recent weeks, Zuckerberg has been using this tactic to poach AI talent from Meta's main rivals, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. Meta also named Alexandr Wang, co-founder of ScaleAI, as its new chief AI officer.
The new hires are all joining Meta's superintelligence group, which aims to create an AI that is smarter and more capable than humans, according to The New York Times.
Pang is a tech industry veteran who joined Apple from Alphabet in 2021. With his departure, Zhifeng Chen will now run Apple's foundation models team. Apple's overall AI strategy falls under Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of software engineering, and Mike Rockwell, who took over the Siri team in March.
It's unclear how Pang's departure will affect the company's AI product roadmap. The foundation models that Pang oversaw are the engine behind Apple Intelligence. At WWDC, the company open-sourced them for developers for the first time, but the company seems unsatisfied with their performance for its own products. It's now reportedly considering using models from Anthropic or OpenAI for the new Siri. Will Pang's departure speed up that process?
Apple CEO Tim Cook is probably not happy right now. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman certainly wasn't pleased when Meta pillaged its payroll a few weeks ago. Both companies are likely scrambling to stop the brain drain to cash-flush Meta and retain their talent.
"I feel a visceral feeling right now, as if someone has broken into our home and stolen something," OpenAI chief research officer Mark Chen wrote in a memo to employees on June 28, Wired reports. "We’re recalibrating comp, and we’re scoping out creative ways to recognize and reward top talent."
OpenAI also recently boosted its security to protect its IP from its Chinese rivals. It added fingerprint scans, enhanced vetting of staff, and hired military experts to protect important data, The Financial Times reports.