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Open AI announces $1.5M bonus for every employee
- duxup 1y agoThe AI race seems more defined by spending more money than the other guy, regardless of results. The benefits just seem like a game of PR one upmanship tied to I don't know what. The OpenAI Ive acquisition / partnership is strange / expensive / the webpage was downright creepy ...
- npongratz 1y ago> The AI race seems more defined by spending more money than the other guy, regardless of results. Reminds me of the much-vaunted, then widely maligned and derided, burn rate metric of the dot-com bubble.
- dist-epoch 1y ago> regardless of results Are we living in the same world, are you saying the LLMs of today are not vastly more capable than the ones from 1 or 2 years ago?
- duxup 1y agoI find LLMs useful for coding and some basic Q&A. But the scale of investment / expenditure relative to profit and those useful tasks seem pretty far from each other.
- benreesman 1y agoI think everyone should want a directional incentive that hard work and the kinds of success that attach to hard work combined with cultivated expertise would be lucrative, on average if we reward positive outcomes achieved in productive rather than extractive ways? Good system. No one is mad when the smartest person they know who works constantly gets paid out. Some of these people getting these nosebleed offers I'm like, yeah, you pay that person 50 million they make you 250, I've seen it. But it feels pretty fucking random at this juncture, I know really strong people kinda getting by, total hood ornaments in like, stupidly senior slots, its like if you took OG Google tough but fair stack rank from back when they were legitimately elite, and just shuffled the deck until there were zero bits of information left. How do you compete on thst with a rising China, an India not far behind, and a Europe starting to wake up?
- tim333 1y agoIt's funny how it's changed. Hassabis on Lex the other day: >I remember when we were starting out back in 2010, I didn’t even pay myself a couple of years because it wasn’t enough money. We couldn’t raise any money, and these days, interns are being paid the amount that we raised as our first entire seed round. So it’s pretty funny. And I remember the days where I used to have to work for free and almost pay my own way to do an internship. Right now, it’s all the other around, but that’s just how it is.
- belter 1y agoOpenAI employees will now be able to afford to split the rent of a 2 bedroom apartment close to the Office...If they find 3 other roommates with the same bonus...
- dijit 1y agoMan, I know I didn't go into making video games for the money, but that would make the rest of my life so much easier.
- a_bored_husky 1y ago1/100 of that is life changing money for most people here in my country. I can't imagine...
- growthwtf 1y agoIt's life changing for most people in the SF bay area too!
- darknavi 1y agoYES! Finally they can upgrade from a studio to a one bedroom! (I am mostly joking but also crying inside because Seattle prices are also insane)
- darth_avocado 1y agoAfter taxes, that’s a down payment on a house, not a lavish one, in the SF Bay Area.
- nexus2045 1y ago15k? Where?
- a_bored_husky 1y agoCuba
- koakuma-chan 1y agoThat's more than I make a year. I live in Toronto and work remotely for a Ukranian company.
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- Mistletoe 1y agoIt is going to be absolutely brutal when this bubble pops. I'm hoping to Freya that it happens in 2026 when I am in safer investments.
- menaerus 1y agoI don't think so. Tech is transformative in a way that I can't think of any similar in the last few decades really.
- colinmorelli 1y agoBoth things can be true. The tech can be transformative, and the current valuations and burn rate can be wholly unsustainable in the short term. This is exactly what happened in the dotcom era. Whether or not this one is the same is impossible to know until after it happens. But there are credible arguments to both sides.
- starship731 1y agoSame thing was sad of the Internet in 1999 when Yahoo had a market cap of $125 billion, and AOL $200 billion. Where are both companies today? It's déjà vu all over again it seems.
- latentsea 1y agoYeah, there isn't a single internet based company that's remotely worth that amount of money anywhere on earth remaining today...
- starship731 1y agoYeah, Yahoo & AOL still exist today as independent companies don't they?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ralferoo 1y agohttps://archive.is/yyIJA https://archive.is/yyIJA
- whynotminot 1y agoA month ago: “missionaries will win over mercenaries” Today: “here’s 1.5 million dollars”
- baq 1y agoMissionaries are happier when they get paid turns out
- zeld4 1y agoI read a few biographies for western missionaries to Asia, they all ended up get paid handsomely, except those not lived long enough see that day.
- throwup238 1y agoThe missionaries to Latin America that followed the conquistadors were largely Dominicans, Franciscans, etc who took vows of poverty. A few got encomiendas but they were by far the exception. Few missionaries got rich on that continent.
- joshdavham 1y agoWere they ever missionaries in the first place? I imagine the founders and early employees were. But do you think most people hired after ChatGPT became a household name were in it for the vision?
- ethbr1 1y agoAt this point, I think everyone at OpenAi is adept at speaking out of both sides of their mouths. Corporate culture taking its cue from leaders, after all. 'I'm doing this solely for the mission' -> (makes choices that maximize financial benefit)
- jacquesm 1y agoMilliomercionaries?
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- stanleykm 1y agoit is an interesting feeling to be someone who was considered to be absurdly highly paid just a few years ago and looking at the landscape now where people in similar positions are making 3x,4x, more, much much more now. Hard to tell if jumping on the ai train at this point is a good or bad idea.
- candiddevmike 1y agoStunts like this give off big dot com era bubble vibes
- setsewerd 1y agoWhile I agree, it's also worth pointing out the different economics here. By the superintelligence calculus, "winning" the AI race has the potential to put a given individual/company/government in a position of obscene dominance in the world, so the potential ROI for this type of investment makes any cost seem almost trivial.
- figassis 1y agoWhich resulted in lots of millionaires
- jeffbee 1y agoIt says every member of the technical staff. It also says it's a grant that vests over 2 years, so not what any normal person considers a "bonus". A bonus is cash in hand.
- menaerus 1y agoIt says every employee unless there's some other source you're reading this? Although I would expect the truth to be closer to what you said.
- jeffbee 1y agoIt's all unsourced but the root of it is this LinkedIn post that says technical staff. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/zuhayeer_every-full-time-openai-employee-will-receive-activity-7359096458991620096-_isV/ https://www.linkedin.com/posts/zuhayeer_every-full-time-open...
- chollida1 1y ago> It also says it's a grant that vests over 2 years, so not what any normal person considers a "bonus". A bonus is cash in hand. Every bonus I've gotten has vested. So its not that unusual. Generally vesting applies to larger bonuses and to bonuses tied to performance. I'm guessing 1.5M is a larger bonus than the average tech employee gets each year but is pretty inline for a typical hedge fund.
- SkyPuncher 1y agoI've never had a bonus vest. They're almost always immediate payouts.
- dhussoe 1y agoI've received some "bonus" performance related equity grants with a four year vesting period. These are beyond normal the refresher grants. They are not described by the company as "bonus", because we also have the sort of cash bonus you're talking about, but were I to describe them to people outside the company, I'd probably say "bonus grants" or something. In this case it seems obvious that it needs some kind of vesting terms to prevent people from taking the bonus and then just taking another offer anyways.
- varispeed 1y agoRefreshing to see. Usually employees are being treated as a resource to exploit. There is system called "market rates", where labour cost is actually fixed across the domains and is disconnected from the value workers generate. So you as an employee can develop something that saves company few millions, but still you'll get paid £65k and then dismissed the moment company doesn't need you.
- jonway 1y agoThey’re most likely doing it, and structuring it to vest in 2 years, to prevent “poaching” , leaks etc. which strikes me as a very temporary situation. Seems like this is the new moat for now?
- volkk 1y agoi'm having a lot of cognitive dissonance with the amount of money being thrown around -- you have people making a few dollars a day in some parts of the world, and in others you get an extra 1.5mm to sit at the computer for 2 hours a day and then take a nap. Let's be honest, not all openai employees are phd researchers, and this is one giant publicity stunt akin to a gameshow (Look at us! we pay a TON, much more than the other guy!) black mirror-esque somehow. but hey, now a few thousand people in SF are guaranteed millionaires (as if they weren't already)
- anon191928 1y agoit's all coming from the debt that is approved by congress 2 months ago. they get few million cause there is no real moat for OPENAI. It's nice extra bribe so they don't challange, lmao. Becauses now VCs have extra cheap debt too. Any top or mid lev openai employee reading this, as a group you worth 10x for this, to OUR DEBT lords. Simple.
- Magmalgebra 1y ago> others you get an extra 1.5mm to sit at the computer for 2 hours a day and then take a nap A few of the most world class reserachers can do this, all of my other friends and colleagues at OpenAI work 10-14 hours day - often 7 days a weeek. OpenAI pays eyewatering sums but you're absolutely sacrificing years of your life for it.
- SkyPuncher 1y agoThis is what people are missing. OpenAI isn't paying people to make a 30 year career over 30 years. They're paying people to make their entire career NOW.
- volkk 1y agothat doesn't even make any sense. if they believe they have longevity then they absolutely should be paying people to make a career there and not just go out in a bright flash
- gdsdfe 1y agothe open AI careers page must be hit like crazy right now
- ralferoo 1y agoIt strikes me that this is a massive red flag pointing to AI being in a bubble. This is an insane amount of money to give away to employees who were presumably already happy with their compensation package. Given how high data centre costs are, and anticipated growth on spending, and how until just recently the company was actively seeking investment, to have this much spare money sloshing around shows how horrifically overvalued the company is. If I directly owned significant quantities of shares in any company that's recently invested, I'd be worried about an imminent crash in their stock prices.
- Shank 1y ago> This is an insane amount of money to give away to employees who were presumably already happy with their compensation package. I mean, a house is probably a nice gift and a good reassurance of future safety if AGI/ASI ruins all future jobs.
- candiddevmike 1y agoHow do OpenAI employees come out unscathed if AGI/ASI ruins all future jobs? Why would OpenAI keep these employees around? Would there even be humans as part of "OpenAI Inc" at that point? I guess I don't understand how anyone could keep an AGI/ASI that can perform any job in bondage/slavery. Seems like human exceptionalism/hubris at its finest.
- toomuchtodo 1y agoIf you have no mortgage, own your home, and have saved enough in investments, even if AGI/ASI materially impairs the labor economy, you are in a far better position than someone who rents, someone with a large mortgage who needs a job for the next 20-30 years, etc assuming rule of law holds up. Free money is free money, to not take it would be silly. Just don't blow it on a Lambo. I'm not qualified to touch on your point wrt constraining and wrangling machine intelligence, so no comment on that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XamC7-Pt8N0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XamC7-Pt8N0 (NSFW language, first 45 seconds is the relevant part)
- John23832 1y agoIs this actually confirmed? I couldn't follow the links to find anything concrete.
- sourceverified9 1y agoI'm hearing it isn't actually true. Apparently researchers did get a retention bonus, but not all employees.
- deadbabe 1y agoWhat’s the catch?
- jjice 1y ago2 year vesting period. Not that that's a huge draw back in the majority of cases. I'd stay at a job for two years for 750k extra per year.
- saalweachter 1y agoIt's a bargain I expect most people would take, even with what I'm about to say next, but I also predict this is going to be a situation rife with abuse, with employees being pressured to "work extra hard" (eg, live in the office) during these two years, and plenty of people being fired for under-performing (eg, not living in the office) so they can avoid paying out the bonus to as many people as possible. Also, most new hires will have the impression that another 1.5M 2-year retention bonus is right around the corner, but won't actually get one.
- lurking_swe 1y agoIf you do that (to that extreme), then you guarantee they will all leave after 2 years, and you have another retention problem. That’s just bone headed in my opinion.
- saalweachter 1y agoDepends on the strategic goals. Plenty of companies have succeeded running high-churn operations getting a few good years from employees before they burn out and take a lower-stress job, maybe not even with a competitor (because they don't want to jump on the same treadmill at a similar company), or even just dropping out to raise goats.
- deadbabe 1y agoIn 2 years, you can offer another 1.5 million dollar bonus for the employees that didn’t churn out.
- lagniappe 1y agoTo any of the recipients reading this, congrats on the bonus
- belter 1y agoI got laid yesterday, just by claiming I work at OpenAI...
- 7222aafdcf68cfe 1y agoThanks !
- zeld4 1y agoIf anybody in OpenAI ever had any second thought about taking other people's property without consent, that doubt should go away now with $1.5M in pocket.
- sejje 1y agoReading a webpage, code, or viewing an image is not taking property. This argument is well fleshed from pirating discussions.
- trimbo 1y agoExcept that, unlike a human, this particular "reader" can then regurgitate millions of copies of that content and all other content it sees, in seconds. I wish people would stop treating this topic like it's not nuanced. It clearly is not as straightforward as either side would like to think.
- latentsea 1y agoTurns out I would download a car.
- Q6T46nT668w6i3m 1y agoReading? Great! Viewing? Great! Training? Not great.
- fatata123 1y ago[dead]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ro_bit 1y agoAre there any news sources corroborating this? Maybe it's early but I'm surprised I can't find any articles from OpenAI or press outlets about this. Googling "openAI bonus" gives some reddit threads, some linkedin posts, and this hacker news post
- deanmoriarty 1y agoWhen employees are underpaid (see Windsurf), HN be like: investors and C-suites take all the gains, off with their heads! When employees are generously (and proactively) compensated for the financial milestones of the company, HN be like: it’s a bubble, it’s irresponsible, investors are fools, off with their heads! I applaude OpenAI and its investors for approving these moves. Even if it’s a bubble, sharing some of it with employees “before it bursts” is a noble action. I worked in startups where management kept employees in complete illiquidity until full wipeout inevitably happened, while many senior folks were able to take some off the table in targeted secondary transactions.
- stronglikedan 1y agoAt either extreme, both are a problem, off with their heads!
- lovelearning 1y agoDifferent subsets of commentators I think.
- georgemcbay 1y agoI don't often comment on HN in either of these cases but... I think aspects of both things are true. There is a serious AI bubble right now and also it is the norm in the startup/VC world to fuck over regular employees. I'm happy for any normal people who got 1.5M here. But even in this case I believe this has more to do with weird poaching politics (and hype building) than it does being legitimately altruistic.
- stanleykm 1y agoHumans are complicated. They see the unfairness of the windsurf situation, and then they see the unfairness of their own situation.
- buttercraft 1y agoI'm guessing you didn't get invited to the meetings where all of HN gets together and decides how to comment on the topic of the day.
- rbrown 1y ago!!!!
- mitkebes 1y agoI read recently that Meta was trying to hire employees from OpenAI/Google/Anthropic for higher pay, and that they found that OpenAI employees were the most willing to jump ship. It's possible OpenAI is having an employee retention problem, and this is intended to keep employees and help attract new talent.
- stubish 1y agoKeep employees in the short term. After 2 years, employees can retire comfortably. When the salary becomes irrelevant, you can hang around for more beach homes doing what the boss wants and keeping your work proprietary to the company, or quit and do whatever you want and do whatever you want with it. Or maybe the golden handcuffs are heavier than what the article makes out.
- wnevets 1y agoDoesn't this disincentivize their employees to work harder once they get the money? Capitalist have told me you must keep your employees on the verge of disaster to have a successful business.
- cuckycheese 1y ago[dead]
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- meindnoch 1y agoEvery employee? Even the receptionist?
- aaomidi 1y agoI’m guessing receptionists are not full employees and are vendors/contractors
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rbrown 1y agoTruly insane
- paxys 1y agoZuckerberg deserves a mountain of critisism for everything he has done, but one thing I'll give him is that he doesn't hesitate to get out his checkbook and pay absurd amounts of money for engineering talent. Back when Apple, Google, Adobe, Intel and other big tech companies signed illegal anti-poaching agreements Zuck said no, I'll pay whatever it takes to attract the best talent, no matter where they work. Facebook/Meta has consistently set the bar for engineering salaries across the industry, and Google and the rest are forced to match it. Now every AI company is paying millions of dollars for regular engineers just because Zuck is out there throwing out wads of cash from the roof. When it comes to salaries the man simply does not care about standards and precedents, and I love that.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- garbawarb 1y agoYep. And a company like Meta or OpenAI paying massive sums is a good thing for workers, even if you don't work there. Other companies have more incentive to pay their workers more or they'll go elsewhere.
- MangoCoffee 1y ago>he doesn't hesitate to get out his checkbook He bought Instagram for $1 billion. If I remember correctly, people thought he was crazy to pay that much. Then he bought WhatsApp. Facebook might be on the decline, but both of those two apps are still going strong
- 1oooqooq 1y agoand people keep investing in the message that this will replace jobs. this is too funny.
- jameslk 1y agoAny reason to believe this is true, other than a guy who claims to have friends at OpenAI said so?
- bradlys 1y agoI might get shit for this but 1.5m is a lot but for people who are relatively early at OpenAI - a $500B company - it’s not. I would be surprised if most engineers hired 3-4 years ago are not on paper at least worth $10m in NW. When I worked at other companies with a tenth or even a hundredth of valuation - there were tons of people who still quit knowing they were going to get $1m+/yr by staying. 1.5m to retain these people is a lot but it isn’t when you consider how much you’ve already given and/or how much they’re already getting. I suspect - like many companies in the bay right now - the work environment is incredibly demanding and toxic. This ain’t faang in 2012 with ball pits and slides.
- blindriver 1y agoIt's funny how this dropped off the front page despite the upvotes and activity.
- John23832 1y agoBecause there's no proof at all.
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- crorella 1y agothis is false :(
- jaredcwhite 1y agoBlood money.