Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree • Hacker News Board

Re: Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

#11

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 2:07 AM UTC

IncreasePosts wrote: post #9

You'd think instead of paying 1 really good engineer $250M you could pay 5 really good engineers $50M each.

This is a Bighead on the roof scenario. They aren't paying $250m to actually have $250m worth of work produced. They're paying it so that their competition doesn't have it.

Re: Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

#12

Post by coro_1 » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 2:27 AM UTC

> As of mid-August, Meta had successfully hired more than 20 researchers and engineers from OpenAI for the effort, at least 13 from Google, three from Apple, three from xAI and two from Anthropic for a total of 50-plus new employees.

The rest of us look for cultural fit.

Re: Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

#13

Post by ipnon » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 2:32 AM UTC

hooloovoo_zoo wrote: post #10

Meta already bought all openAI’s secrets; now it just needs to let the GPUs cook.

When it is framed in this way the compensations are rational.

Re: Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

#14

Post by yahoozoo » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 2:41 AM UTC

Surely Meta is going to be the company that turns LLMs into, not just AGI, but ASI.

Re: Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

#15

Post by ghostpepper » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 2:47 AM UTC

impish9208 wrote: post #2

Gift link: https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-ai-hiring-freeze-fda6b3c4?s...

Thanks for sharing.

Pretty aggressive paywall that is blocking archive.is and won't allow viewing a gift link without an account.

Re: Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

#16

Post by mandeepj » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 3:06 AM UTC

animitronix wrote: post #4

Lol. Meta has always been such a clownshow...

They have burnt $40B on metaverse fantasy!

Re: Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

#17

Post by lotsofpulp » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 3:18 AM UTC

animitronix wrote: post #4

Lol. Meta has always been such a clownshow...

Others can only hope their clown show is as successful:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/META/meta-platform...

Re: Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

#18

Post by pm90 » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 3:29 AM UTC

Interesting that investors can pressure Meta this way. I assumed that since Zuck has the “power shares” he can overrule anyone?

Re: Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

#19

Post by tushar-r » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 3:41 AM UTC

Layoffs incoming?

Re: Meta Freezes AI Hiring After Blockbuster Spending Spree

#20

Post by kjkjadksj » Thu, Aug 21, 2025, 3:55 AM UTC

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #11

IncreasePosts wrote: post #9

You'd think instead of paying 1 really good engineer $250M you could pay 5 really good engineers $50M each.

This is a Bighead on the roof scenario. They aren't paying $250m to actually have $250m worth of work produced. They're paying it so that their competition doesn't have it.

If they are worth $250M to not work imagine how much they’d be worth if they said “screw that I’ll spin out my own company and license myself out.” I guess being paid a quarter billion to not work is hard to argue against though.