#ai-talent

#ai-talent

As skilled workers become essential to tech companies like his own, Karp thinks they'll also get more expensive. "Artist-shaped people are going to be incredibly valuable, and they're going to demand to be very highly paid," he added. (Karp and Palantir employees sometimes refer to the company's culture as "an artist colony.") And after an AI frenzy of a summer, higher pay isn't all that surprising.

The push towards return to office and, ultimately, 996 is simultaneously intense.

Musk stated on X, "Many strong Meta engineers have and are joining xAI and without the need for insane initial comp, still great, but not unsustainably high."

Thinking Machines Lab has raised a historic $2 billion seed round, valuing the firm at $12 billion and underscoring intense competition for AI talent and technology.

"Hire a bunch of these people," he said in a Monday interview on the a16z podcast, "because they're going to flip your company on its head in terms of how much faster the organization can run."

Microsoft's substantial investment in AI includes billions spent on its flagship Copilot tool and it remains the largest investor in OpenAI, despite some relationship issues.

"There's a ton of ripple effects I'm hearing in the Valley. There is a sense of jealousy, envy, and helplessness, and everybody being like, 'I thought I was doing pretty well. What am I doing wrong?...'"