Highest Bidder

The tech gossip of the week has been Meta’s attempt to buy out OpenAI’s top talent with juicy $100M bonuses. That figure is striking—it sounds more like the signing fee for a football superstar or the contract of a Hollywood lead actor. I’m not going to question the truth of Sam Altman’s words—maybe, like ChatGPT itself, he sometimes hallucinates. So, taking his claims at face value, here are a few thoughts that come to mind.

Is it all just a façade to attract attention and investment? Just like a famous name on a movie poster can guarantee box office success (even if the film turns out to be a total dud and the superstar only appears for 30 seconds), maybe this is just a move to maintain the company's status.

Along similar lines, the move could be something more twisted. In a world of cutthroat competition and backstabbing, perhaps Meta's goal isn’t so much to benefit from these hires but to sabotage OpenAI’s progress by removing its top minds. It might be less about what they gain and more about what their competitor loses.

But maybe there’s something deeper here—maybe we’re truly witnessing the people setting the pace for innovation and development. Most of us mere mortals are far from such prestige, but come to think of it, even the most modest developer is still quite privileged in terms of salary and working conditions. So, perhaps this isn’t that strange after all—it’s just the market.

This ties into my “prediction” about the future of tech jobs: we’re entering a phase where a few will see their value skyrocket, while others will have to fight for a handful of roles under worse conditions.

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