Today’s corporate world is as competitive as it can get, and as a result, many companies try to strategically acquire talents from rival companies. This practice is commonly called “poaching”, where companies try to lure the employees of rival companies by offering them impressive packages, better benefits and enticing career growth opportunities.
I speak of employee poaching because OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is trying to poach employees from rival companies like Google and Meta with very high packages. According to Moneycontrol, some employees are being offered a salary as high as Rs 83 crore per annum.
What OpenAI is doing is basically dangling carrots in front of Google and Meta’s top tech resources and best researchers. Last year, the names of 5 researchers who used to work for Google were listed in the acknowledgements section of OpenAI’s blog post announcing the launch of ChatGPT.
OpenAI has already hired 93 people who previously used to work for Google and Meta. Out of them, 59 were from Google and 34 were from Meta.
OpenAI’s job listings for research engineers show an annual salary between $245,000 and $450,000 (Rs 2 crore and Rs 3.8 crore approx) along with a “generous equity” and other benefits which add up to Rs 83 crore a year, reported News18.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI who was in India last year said, “Many of our best researchers are undergraduates or are college dropouts. You certainly do not need a PhD to do great work. OpenAI will welcome you on the basis of talent, and we are certainly a good fit for undergrads.”
There are various ethical concerns when it comes to the topic of employee poaching. While some say it is justified in such a competitive market, others say it is disloyal and sketchy.
What are your views about this?