Ruoming Pang, a former eminent engineer who oversaw Apple’s AI models team, has reportedly received one of the most striking offers from Meta Platforms Inc., offering him more than $200 million in total compensation.
As it actively seeks out top artificial intelligence (AI) talent to support its new “superintelligence” division, the tech giant is shattering compensation records in Silicon Valley. The offer, which includes stock incentives spread over several years, was significantly more than Apple was prepared to match, even for one of its top AI executives, according to Bloomberg.
According to the report available to BrandSpur digital news platform, which cited people with knowledge of the situation, Meta’s pay package for this top AI team is comparable to; and in some cases, higher than that of CEOs at large international banks.
Continuing, the majority of the compensation, though, is performance-based and subject to long-term vesting requirements.
Building artificial general intelligence (AGI), or systems that can carry out intellectual tasks on par with or better than humans, is the goal of the superintelligence initiative known as the Meta Superintelligence Lab (MSL).
Meta’s hiring approach seems to be effective. In addition to Scale AI Co-founder, Alexandr Wang, who was named Meta’s Chief AI Officer through a $14.3 billion deal that saw Meta acquire a 49% stake in his company, the team now includes former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman and AI entrepreneur Daniel Gross.
The lucrative mix of compensation components is a major draw for new hires. These consist of high base pay, sizable signing bonuses, which are occasionally designed to make up for equity lost in prior positions, and Meta stock with stringent performance requirements. Stock grants frequently last longer than the usual four-year vesting window, encouraging steadfast devotion and alignment with Meta’s expansion.
