Why AI researchers are getting paid like NBA All-Stars

Hello and welcome to Decoder. This is Alex Heath, your Thursday episode guest host and deputy editor at The Verge. Today I'm joined by Hayden Field, the Verge's new senior AI reporter. We're going to talk about the AI talent wars and why some researchers are suddenly getting traded like their NBA superstars. If you've been paying attention at all to the AI industry this past month, you've likely seen stories about the hiring frenzy that's been happening between big tech, research labs, and AI startups.

Leading the charge here has been Mark Zuckerberg, who has been making some truly unprecedented job offers to try and lure top AI talent to Meta. But there's a whole lot more to this story. Hayden and I have been reporting on this for the past several weeks to get a sense of how big some of these offers really are, why companies like Google are opting to hire instead of acquire. And what it means that some of the most sought-after AI experts in the world are no longer motivated by money alone. Hayden, so good to have you on the show.

Your first Dakota appearance. Welcome. Thanks. I'm so excited and honored, especially to be talking about this. It's just crazy out there right now.

We already have this episode, so unlocking it is cheap and permanent: the full transcript (35 minutes, 6,590 words), segment and word-level timestamps, and .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like, forever.

No account needed, we create one from your checkout email. With credits it is 1 credit; packs start at 10 episodes for $5, and monthly plans are cheaper still.