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> What's the likelihood of that? Sufficiently high that Meta is willing to pay such an amount of money. :-)
Also, do you have a better way to spend that money?
I'd forget the word shareholder even exists.
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Various BigCo-s have been reporting good results recently and highlighted significant AI role in that. That may be a BS of course, yet even if it is half-true we're talking about tens/hundreds of billions of revenues. With 10x multiple it supports a trillion like generic valuation of AI in business right now.
>"The first is enabling business AIs within message threads ... We’re expanding business AIs to more businesses in Mexico and the Philippines. And we expect to broaden availability later this year as we keep refining the product."
>"The second area of business AI development is within ads ... We’re currently testing this with a small number of businesses across Feed and Reels on Facebook and Instagram as well as Instagram Stories."
>"And then the final area that we are exploring is business AIs on business websites to help better support businesses across all platforms ... and we’re starting to test that with a few businesses in the US."
So it's just very small scale tests so far - not the sort of thing that would have any measurable impact on their revenue.
[0]: https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2025/q2...
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Also, do you have a better way to spend that money?
If it were me, yeah, park it in bonds and live off the interest on a tropical beach. Spend my days spearfishing and drinking beers with the locals. Have no concerns except how even my tan is (and tbh I don't see myself caring too much about that). I'd forget the word shareholder even exists.
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Why aren’t they smarter than others?
Probabiliatically improbable - just like the world's most important cryptographic schemes rely on low probability of hash collision. But feel free to prove me wrong - I am ammendable.
But I would expect them to be smart and have relevant experience that everyone else doesn’t have, and I expect the companies offering these salaries aren’t doing it for fun but because they believe their IP or ability to generate IP is very hard to come by, and it’s better to monopolize that talent than let competitors do so. If they could hire 10 people equally as good for 1/10 the price then they would do so. But I’m sure there’s also a large dose of gambling too; even in sports highly anticipated freshman drafts can turn into duds.
I don't think I've ever understood the motivation behind working for so much money. If I got paid $250M a year, I'd work a year and then live comfortably for the rest of my life pursuing my passions. Even if the thing I was doing for work was my passion, I'm sure I'd prefer to do it without ownership of that work going to someone else.
You'll never accumulate society warping amounts of money with that attitude.
To me it's obvious that these extremes create perverse incentives, so the people who will take those jobs won't amount to much. I m willing to bet that Meta's AI efforts are doomed from now on.
this is the nature of capitalism, capital begets more capital and the returns are exponential, however our societies, economies, and tax systems remain linear. We never really adjusted because it's complicated. To me it's obvious that these extremes create perverse incentives, so the people who will take those jobs won't amount to much. I m willing to bet that Meta's AI efforts are doomed from now on.
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It’s just a matter of taste, but I am pleased to see publicity on people with compensation packages that greatly exceed actors and athletes. It’s about time the nerds got some recognition. My hope is that researchers get the level of celebrity that they deserve and inspire young people to put their minds to building great things.
I think I'm mostly with you but it also depends how it exactly plays out. Like I definitely think it is better for society if the economic forces are incentivizing pursuit of knowledge more than pursuit of pure entertainment[0]. But I think we also need to be a bit careful here. You need some celebrities to be the embodiment of an idea but the distribution can be too sharp and undermine, what I think we both agree on…
For whatever reason, remuneration seems more concentrated than fundamentals. I don't begrudge those involved their good luck, though: I've had more than my fair share of good luck in my life, it wouldn't be me with the standing to complain.
why the negativity? no one bats an eye when ronaldo/messi or steph curry or other top athletes get insane salaries. These AI researchers will probably have far more impact on society (good or bad I dont know) than the athletes, and the people who pay them (ie zuck et al) certainly thinks its worth paying them this much because they provide value.
I'm going with envy. Athletics is a completely different skill from software, and one that is looked down on by posters here, judging by the frequent use of "sportsball". "Sportsball" players make huge salaries? Whatever, not my thing, that's for normies. But when software researchers make 1000x my salary? Now it's more personal. Surely they are not 1000x as good as me. It seems unlikely that this guy is 1000x as ski…
I think negative feelings are coming from more of a “why are they getting paid so much to build a machine that’s going to wreck everything” sort of angle, which I find understandable.
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If it were me, yeah, park it in bonds and live off the interest on a tropical beach. Spend my days spearfishing and drinking beers with the locals. Have no concerns except how even my tan is (and tbh I don't see myself caring too much about that). I'd forget the word shareholder even exists.
And let others govern the world?
- Percy Bysshe Shelley