Can Company Mission Compete With a $100 Million Paycheck?

Speaker A: Alrighty everybody. This is another edition of the Web News. And this comes to us from the AI Weekly website. Uh, here I will link this of course in the, uh, show notes on HTML, all things dot com. But we're not taking this whole sort of newsletter or this whole blog post here. We're just taking one sentence of the TLDR because we just want to talk about, uh, the idea of it. And I'm just going to read this to you. It says here anthropic CEO, uh, Dario Amadei told colleagues he worries new hires are joining for the paycheck rather than the safety mission. According to Axios. Yeah, they, they are usually, uh, doing that. Um, I mean this stems, I think a lot from. We have, we have a problem. We have, we. There's a cost of living problem. I think, uh, in many places. Obviously varying economies, varying cost of living issues, or maybe no issue at all in some places. But I know that here in Canada we have some major issues. Lots of people that are, you know, flat broke, lots of people not saving for retirement, lots of people not being able to get housing, lots of people having lots and lots of issues. Many people working several jobs and still struggling to make ends meet. Now you could take that and turn it on its head and say that it's almost a Caleb Hammer moment where, uh, people aren't managing their finances correctly, they're spending foolishly, et cetera, et cetera. I certainly see that among some friends. I also, I uh, also see the exact opposite of that among some friends where people are being extremely frugal. So some are very frugal, some are spending like crazy. And the frugal ones sometimes are not getting the sort of normal stuff in life. And if, or if they do, they, they struggle every month to pay that mortgage or that rent or whatever it is. And it's uh, it's a serious issue. I also would like to say one other thing is that this also, I think stems from school. So in school, high school, they keep saying, oh, get a good job so you can get a good paycheck. Get a good job so you can get a good paycheck. I don't recall at any point in my schooling did they ever say, get a good job so you can ensure that you're enhancing shareholder value or that you're joining a company for a specific mission. Now obviously some companies have specific missions that people are going to get behind, maybe like a, a cancer charity research or something like that. And there's various other m. Things it doesn't have to be a charity, various other missions out there. And some people are going to really, really attach themselves to a particular mission and they're going to, they're going to run with it and that's going to be their passion, that's going to be their thing. But throughout school, high school, and then into post secondary, it was all about the money. It was always. Even if you looked in the brochure saying people who go to this college and take this course oftentimes get hired at this annual salary. Says it right there. It says it in the advertisement for the individual courses and programs that we take. And so of course new hires are going to be going after a paycheck. I mean, of course, due to the cost of living issues in many places, but also due to the fact that we've been kind of trained to do that. And I don't necessarily even think that, that that's wrong either. I don't think it's, it's wrong to say you're chasing the bag and trying to ensure that you and, or your family is going to be economically sound. Even if you want to, quote, unquote, waste all your money on video games or something else, you want that, so you're going to chase that. Right?

Speaker B: So, yes, um, we need money to survive. That's mainly the case of why people take jobs for money. And that's how the job market works. I think Dario Amadei is maybe getting frustrated because the current AI market is very competitive right now for salaries. So there's certain experts out there that are sought after and because of that they're demanding very high salaries. And so his frustration comes out as, like, wouldn't, like, wouldn't you want to take a lower salary, like not 100 million, but $50 million a year to work for Anthropic, who is safety oriented versus Grok, who is maybe not as safety oriented oriented or SpaceX as safety oriented, uh, because you're like, that's your mission and that's your, you know. But no, like that, you know, that AI engineer might not want to do that. And so he's frustrated in that sense. I think that that's where he's coming from. I'm not sure.

Speaker A: Can I come in with just a hot take? Because, like, we could research this statement or whatever. Like, we just kind of wanted to like, discuss this. Yeah, not in a capitalist system. No, you're not going to, you're going to chase the bag. There's going to be exceptions to you chasing the bag. There's going to be exceptions to people chasing it. There's going to be some people that just say, this salary is enough for me. And they're going to, they're going to stick with it. Maybe they want to work with their, where their friends work. Maybe they like the work life balance. Maybe they like the culture there. Sure. Granted, there's many, many factors at play. A, uh, big foundational, maybe even the foundation of capitalism is money. I mean, like, oh, yeah, just take a hit in the stock market. Don't worry about it. Why, why would I do that? Why wouldn't I just sell this stock and then go to that other stock if I know I'm going to take a hit now?

Speaker B: Yeah, like I, I am of that mindset. Like you're, if we, if we equate it back to professional sports, this is a very common argument in professional sports is like, why don't you take a little bit less money so you can. Especially, uh, professional sports with a salary cap, I should say you take less money so that you can build the team better. And some, some like a small handful of players do that. Like really high, highly talented players do that where they take a couple less million so that they can, you know, hire one more forward or something like that that can help them. Um, but a majority of them don't because like, they all realize that they have a certain amount of time, a certain amount of time to make their money. And yes, it's a lot of money, but, you know, they're in this bubble of everyone else making a lot of money. So they're, they're not looking at like the person that's not in a professional sport, like the salary worker that's making 70k a year. They're not comparing themselves to that. They're comparing themselves to the other generational player that's making $10 million or $50 million. And they're like, well, why wouldn't I make that if I make, if I do the same thing as them? M. This is where the disconnect from the public comes in. And I think this is where the disconnect from Dario is coming in as well, where like, he's trying to put this like, mission oriented approach out there and he's confused as to why people aren't going there. But the reality is, is that like, yeah, you, you can't, maybe you can put like some monetary value on the mission for some engineers. Like maybe there's like a 5 million dollar. Some of these people are getting paid ridiculous amounts of money, by the way. Like this is, this is, this is very much not like a uh, web developer conversation here. This, like this, this is very much talking about these massively over hired, over, over ah, paid people that are making, I mean I think Facebook had one where it was like a hundred million dollars or something, like something ridiculous. Some of that probably are making like lower seven figure or lower six figures or lower seven figures, high six figures. Still a lot of money.

Speaker A: Well, if you, if you look here, yeah, if you look here, like I'll, I'll just give a little bit more context because I think maybe we need it here. Um, so there's, there's, I pulled it up on the screen if you're watching the video version. But basically uh, the, you know, the quote or the statement from Dario Amadei is talking, talking about how there are nine figure packages from Meta. And so it says here, I'm just going to read this paragraph here. The context matters. Sam Altman has acknowledged that signing bonuses of up to 100 million m have been offered to lure top researchers. Meta has hired away at least one high profile anthropic employee. Joel uh, Pobar, who worked on inference and thinking and thinking machines, now stands at around 140 employees. So like, I mean it's these large. Yes, like 100 million. Nine. That's nine figures. Like, that's, that's nine digits. Um, that's a, that's a big thing. But here's the thing though. Like uh, and like Mike and I have had this conversation. Like Mike and I are running like a small business. It's two of us, okay? We run a small business. If you give me $100 million, I'm done. It's over. It's over. And like, is that selfish? Maybe. But I mean think about, think about what's happening here. You come to me and you say, Matt, I'm gonna give you a hundred million dollars, be like awesome, I'm gonna invest part of that. I'm gonna buy a house or something. I'm gonna do, you know, I'll bake a plan, buy a car, whatever. I'm not a person that's gonna go and buy like Ferraris and all this stuff. I'm gonna be like sick and I'm gonna go get a membership, buy a car that runs for 20 years, get a half decent place to live and then live off the interest of my investments because I'm going to get a money person to manage my 100 million. I'm done. It's over. It's over for me. Like financial worry is over for me.

Speaker B: It's over, yes.

Speaker A: Uh, it's gone.

Speaker B: But. But then you're just working for the heck of it at that point, which is a different kind of working for it. And I will say that I think Mark Zuckerberg in that specific case or in these specific cases is kind of pricing that in a little bit. He's actually doing this for two reasons. One is obviously to get the top researcher, but two is to take it away from anthropic to slow them down. He's trying, he's playing this game of like, we're behind. How do we slow down, not only like, uh, catch up, but how do we slow down the other labs? And so he's giving these ridiculous salaries, knowing that they're ridiculous and knowing that probably what you're saying, Matt, that some of them will just be like, well, I'm just going to work a lot less now, and et cetera, et cetera. But at least he's slowing these people down, these uh, these other companies down. So he's. It's a little bit of a dick move maybe, but it is a kind of a smart move in the sense of like, if you're really that far behind, you have to think outside the box. And one of those ways is to do this where he's making it harder for them to hire because obviously this sets a new baseline and it pisses people off. Dario is obviously coming out as pretty pissed off right here and he's, he's taking away talent and he's, he's uh, getting that talent even if at a reduced capacity. Because I, I don't like, I. There's people out there and they're like that. The CEOs are probably the, the main, the main ones like the Elon's of the world and maybe even the, like, you know, the, the Zuckerbergs and all that. Like they already have generational, generational wealth and yet they're still putting in their, you know, 12 hour days for some reason. They're crazy. Like, and that's why they've gotten to that position, because they are pretty crazy.

Speaker A: But here's the thing though is like, I get that, but like, I almost see this issue as not. I understand there's, there's specifics here, which is why I grabbed some more context for this, for this quote. But I almost feel like this is like a statement on just hiring in general. It's like people are going to chase the bag. People are going to chase the bag and it's Hard to hear from somebody who's like a multimillionaire billionaire, yada yada, whatever person that is set for life, whomever. It's hard to hear from someone who has a massive salary, hey, like, don't you believe in us? Like shouldn't you want to, shouldn't you want to work here? And like I understand that they're, that companies have these goals and there's, there's concerns about AI safety and there's all this other stuff but I mean a waitress might really like working at a restaurant, but if the other restaurant were in which the tasks are the same, is going to pay the person 5x, then that waitress is likely to move on to the other restaurant. Like it's just, it's just unfortunately part of it. Because here's the thing, we need money to survive and all the rest of it. I understand you could absolutely survive off of 50 million, but I may as well have a hundred, Mike. Yes, I may as well have a hundred. In fact, I will take that extra 50. Thank you. Like there, you know, uh, ah, and there's going to be people out there that hate that and they're going to say oh that's, you know, that's ridiculous. And, and you know, you shouldn't, you shouldn't do that and you should take less and this and that. I'm going to take the hundred.

Speaker B: Almost everyone, I'm just going to do it. Yeah, almost everyone has their number and those numbers are ridiculous. And I, I do. Like we can talk about two different things here. And I agree with that. Like there is this like idea of him talking to every, every person out there and that that's you know, going to work at a company and they should be mission oriented. Maybe. I, I do think that he's more leaning like talking about what we, what we just talked about with the 100 million dollar people like those ridiculous ones. If we talk about the other side of things, uh, where it's like, you know, everyone should just be happy that they're working for a mission oriented company. That is mostly bullshit like right now. Especially like how can we be happy when you're obviously just laying people off to lay people off. I think the layoffs have a big impact on people's want to be mission oriented. Because it's one thing to be fired or to be like let go because of performance reasons. That always sucks. But it's usually like a handful of people that get fired like that. A layoff usually indicates that you are not at fault. A lot of times Especially it's like if it's a riff, right? Like if it's a, uh, if it's just a business decision, layoff. So how can you be mission oriented if there's always a looming business decision that can cut your, your job? That, that, that to me is the, the severe bullshit of a statement like this. If he was making it towards those general, the general public, the general engineer or the general tech worker or whatever, which I don't think he is.

Speaker A: But like, well, no, like, the context for this specific statement, obviously, like, like helps, helps it more toward your point. Yeah, exactly. But I, but I, uh, I'm just trying to say that, like, it's not that crazy that people are enticed by money. And like, I mean, they're having, they're having success. Like Anthropic is having success. Like it, it's on, it's on the screen again. Here it says Anthropic's counter, as reported, is not to match Amade's line. We are not willing to compromise our compensation principles, our principles of fairness. To respond individually to these offers is a bet that culture and equity upside hold the roster together. The numbers around it are supportive. An 80% retention rate for hires over the last two years. And per the reporting, engineers at OpenAI were eight times more likely to leave Anthropic than the reverse, with the DeepMind ratio nearly 11 to 1.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: Leave for anthropic. Yes. Yeah. Leave for Anthropic. So like, here's the thing. Like, there's, there is more to money. Yes. But it's not. I mean, of course, of course people, especially individuals, are going to take the hundred million.

Speaker B: Like, you'd almost be stupid not to. Like, you'd almost have to be really not intelligent not to like, uh, crazy. You'd have to be.

Speaker A: Well, because here's the thing though, if you're, if you're one of these researchers. Yeah. They're making lots of money if you're one of these researchers. Could any of these researchers, without getting some sort of crazy bonus, just quit working right now and be fine for the rest of their lives? There's going to be some that are, but there's going to be many that are not.

Speaker B: Correct.

Speaker A: My point is that of course large bonuses, uh, are attractive because it's like, hey, here's the amount of money that you're going to make for your whole life in one bucket, and then here's a salary after. Or maybe here's 10 times the amount of money you'd ever make in your entire life and then also a salary. Yeah, of course it's not. Now, money is not everything. I get that. I'm not going to go and take $100 million from some company that's like, yeah, by the way, we stab people literally in the back. In the back alley. It's like, well, hold up. What are you talking about?

Speaker B: Like, what do you want me to do here? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: Well, yeah, you're going to have to, unfortunately. Like, I mean, we call it. We call it, uh, we call it a light. A light suggestion, but it's actually like you're just stabbing people in the back alley. Like, of course I'm not going to be, you know, doing that. But this is part of the, this is part of the war of, of tech. They're fighting over talent. And when you're talking about individuals, of course you're going to. People are going to be enticed by money. Of course, it's not even a question. Yep, we see, we've seen it in sports. We've seen it with PGA and liv. Liv offered huge bonuses to switch over from PGA to live. And the people who switched did not know necessarily what the consequences, how severe the consequences, how long the consequences were going to be from the PGA for switching to another league. But they see the money and they see the, at the time, lesser hours and all the other things that came along with it, even though they were professional golfers making a ton of money in, like, generally speaking, obviously in the pga, you have to win and stuff. There's sponsorships and all this other nonsense, but generally speaking, you have to win or, or be in the top 10 to make, uh, a half decent amount of money. The point is, though, is like, even then, even when a lot of these guys are like, well known, they're influencers, some of them, they, they make tons of money. They've had. They have tons of money. Someone else comes along, goes, you've been doing this for your whole life. Why don't you join us and I'll give you this big old bunch of money. Of course that person's gonna leave.

Speaker B: Yep. Uh, it's more a surprise that he's surprised than it is that they did what they did. So I, uh, I don't think there's much more to say on the topic. But, like, in general, these are big. Like, these are all human beings. Money's going to be a major factor in a lot of decision making.

Speaker A: It has to be m. Imagine. Imagine just being right now, being like, you will never need to worry about money again, period. Okay, then you're right, Mike. Like you said that, you know, there's people like Zuckerberg and whatever that go, and they put their hours in, but they're working for a mission of some sort. Whatever the mission is, it could just be more money. Maybe they just want to hit some sort of, like, big old money goal for themselves, but they're not worried about buying that house or if the car breaks down or, you know, how many kids they can have or whatever. They're not worried about those domestic issues. They're. They're done. Like, financially, they're set. They're done. It's over for them. That's what I was saying. 100 million. For me, it's done. I don't care. Yeah, but I think that's it. I think that's the web news. Uh, what do you think about this particular statement? What do you think about just people taking large bonuses versus trying to help a company along with their mission? Let us know in the comments on the various platforms. And that's it. That's the web news for this week. We're signing off.

Speaker B: Goodbye. Good boy.