Meta is aggressively expanding its recruitment strategy in artificial intelligence. Sam Altman had mentioned spending millions to poach from his team, but Mark Zuckerberg managed to lure Ruoming Pang, the head of language models at Apple, with a staggering offer exceeding $200 million.
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Ruoming Pang, a Key Asset for Meta
According to Bloomberg, Meta offered Ruoming Pang over $200 million to join its new division, Meta Superintelligence Labs, which focuses on developing advanced AI systems. Until recently, Ruoming Pang led Apple’s foundation models team, which consists of about 100 specialized engineers working on large-scale language models. These technologies form the backbone of the newly announced Apple Intelligence features, such as email summaries, priority notifications, and Genmoji.
By recruiting Pang, Meta aims to develop systems with intelligence equal to or greater than human intelligence and ensures the services of a recognized expert at the core of Apple’s AI strategy (even though it seems overwhelmed, it still boasts significant talent). This high-profile recruitment underscores Mark Zuckerberg’s determination—and lack of limits—to quickly bolster his research teams in the face of competitors like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic.
Unprecedented Compensation to Attract AI Talent
The package offered to Ruoming Pang is one of the most generous ever seen in the private sector: a hefty base salary, a substantial signing bonus, and stock options that make up the majority of the total compensation, contingent on performance goals and a long-term commitment to Meta.
This amount far exceeds the compensation of Apple’s executives (except for Tim Cook). According to Bloomberg, Apple did not even attempt to match this offer. Recall that Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, recently revealed in a podcast that Meta was already offering signing bonuses of up to $100 million for some talents from his team. Clearly, the stakes have been raised!
Meta Hastens the Formation of Its AI Dream Team
With Ruoming Pang on board, Meta’s Superintelligence Labs now includes top figures like Nat Friedman (former CEO of GitHub), Daniel Gross (founder of an AI startup), and Alexandr Wang (co-founder of Scale AI). Meanwhile, Apple is reorganizing its team: Zhifeng Chen has been appointed to succeed Ruoming Pang as head of the foundation models team, now structured with a more distributed management among several senior engineers.
This departure marks another setback for Apple in the AI race, as Meta seeks to become a major player in the field by attracting top talent with unprecedented financial packages. With the intensification of the talent war, the coming months could reshuffle the cards of global technological leadership in AI.