Anthropic CEO reportedly worried new hires only care about money

There are a lot of bad midwit arguments for why you shouldn't worry about machine superintelligence. The bad midwit arguments mean that midwits filter themselves out.

They believed in the company’s Mission™ (brand tortillas).

Back in the day, it wasn't just better snacks - Facebook served three meals a day, they had free drop-off laundry on campus, all the snacks in the world, and that barbecue shack on campus was legitimately decent.

Of course, you had to sell your soul in the process, but particularly for young, single folks just out of university, it was like moving to another better college campus, and if you took full advantage of the perks you could bank another 30-40k of your comp, easy

Maybe I’m looking through rose-colored glasses, but while people need money, there was a time where there was more idealism from the founders and the employees. Steve Jobs could’ve quit business in 1985 after his failed coup; he was rich enough to never have to work again. Yet he started NeXT, and he was able to get people to join his company.

I feel we’re in a timeline in Silicon Valley where there’s little idealism. Employees seek money, and who can blame them when a two-bedroom apartment can easily rent for $4000/mo or more, and when a house is easily $2 million? Leaders seek not only money, but power, and their desires for power have been more blatant in the past year.

Where are the Steve Wozniak and Gary Kildall figures of Silicon Valley these days?

I think the comments here are taking this comment as being about how salaries are too high, or how it's daft to suggest people shouldn't chase the best paying role available to them. I suspect that isn't really what Dario means though.

Perhaps I'm being too generous but I think his comments are about two problems that all rich companies face:

1. How do you maintain momentum in an industry where other companies with deep pockets can tempt your staff away quite easily just by offering more money? If everyone is willing to hop from company to company then it drives wages up (not a bad thing) but also slows progress as a whole industry (a bad thing).

2. How do you keep people when they can just retire and live a life of leisure at any point? It's not about the high wages; it's about employing people who want to see the challenge through to the end.

Ultimately Anthropic has a vast pile of money and can pay people loads to work there. That isn't enough to keep them there though. Paying a lot doesn't get the company to the next milestone if people are happy to just drop it for a better offer or walk away entirely when they feel they have enough.

It's the most first world problem imaginable, but I can see that it would be something that keeps a billionaire CEO up at night.