Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

Posted by spenvo 7/1/2025

Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'(www.wired.com)

344 points | 699 commentspage 13

PostOnce 7/2/2025|

Parachute Sam into an island of cannibals, come back in 5 years, and he'll be king. Unless, of course, one of the cannibals is Mark Zuckerberg; then he might just get eaten.

silent_echo 7/2/2025||

Suchir Balaji

gadders 7/2/2025||

i.e. "I've already made my generational wealth. How dare my employees try and get some for their own families?"

tehjoker 7/2/2025||

this shit sounds so fake it makes me want to die. all these capitalist perverts pretending that they believe in anything at all is completely preposterous and is at odds with capitalism. you’re all mercenaries and criminals Sam.

cs702 7/1/2025||

I like sama and many other folks at OpenAI, but I have to call things how I see them:

"What Meta is doing will, in my opinion, lead to very deep cultural problems. We will have more to share about this soon but it's very important to me we do it fairly and not just for people who Meta happened to target."

Translation from corporate-speak: "We're not as rich as Meta."

"Most importantly of all, I think we have the most special team and culture in the world. We have work to do to improve our culture for sure; we have been through insane hypergrowth. But we have the core right in a way that I don't think anyone else quite does, and I'm confident we can fix the problems."

Translation from corporate-speak: "We're not as rich as Meta."

"And maybe more importantly than that, we actually care about building AGI in a good way." "Other companies care more about this as an instrumental goal to some other mission. But this is our top thing, and always will be." "Missionaries will beat mercenaries."

Translation from corporate-speak: "I am high as a kite." (All companies building AGI claim to be doing it in a good way.)

ASalazarMX 7/1/2025||

The perfect corollary is that Altman is as mercenary, if not more, than Zuckerberg, given all the power grabs he did in OpenAI. Even the "Open" in OpenAI is a joke.

He just has less options because OpenAI is not as rich as Meta.

mzajc 7/1/2025|||

> "But we have the core right in a way that I don't think anyone else quite does"

Translation from corpospeak: "I think my pivot to for-profit is very clever and unique" :)

elzbardico 7/1/2025||

Said the guy whose life mission seems to be to convert a non-profit into a for-profit entity.

trhway 7/1/2025||

look around - CA - missionaries have the best real estate. And another related note on connection between strong promotion of devotion to ideas and it is being a good business - the Abrahamic monotheism was a result of the successful marketing campaign "only the donations made here are donations to the real god" of that Temple back then against several other competing ones. (Curiously that the current historic stage of AI, on the cusp, be it 3 or 30 years, of emergence of AGI is somewhat close to that point in history back then. Thus in particular a flood of messiahs and doom sayers would only increase.)

Quarrelsome 7/1/2025|||

> the Abrahamic monotheism was a result of the successful marketing campaign

I thought it was because everyone was accepted, technically equal, and sins were seen as something inherent and forgivable (at least with Christianity) whereas paganism and polythiesms can tend towards rewarding those with greater resources (who can afford to sacrifice an entire bull every religious cycle), thereby creating a form of religious inequality. At least that was one of the somewhat compelling arguments I heard that described the spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire.

timewizard 7/1/2025|||

In short: "Liars prosper in the short term."

trhway 7/1/2025||

They can prosper longer than you can stay liquid or even alive :)

timewizard 7/1/2025||

That depends on the regulatory environment and the degree of market monopolization.

elzbardico 7/2/2025||

That's why lobbying is a lucrative business. Rent seekers are gonna rent seek.

unit_circle 7/1/2025||

Side note: I'm noticing more and more of these simple, hyperbolic headlines specifically of statements that public figures make. A hallmark of the event being reported is a public figure making a statement that will surely have little to no effect whatsoever.

Calling these statements "slamming" (a specific word I see with curious frequency) is so riling to me because they are so impotent but are described with such violent and decisive language.

Often it's a politician, usually liberal, and their statement is such an ineffectual waste of time, and outwardly it appears wasting time is most of what they do. I consider myself slightly left of center, so seeing "my group" dither and waste time rather than organize and do real work frustrates me greatly. Especially so since we are provided with such contrast from right of center where there is so much decisive action happening at every moment.

I know it's to feed ranking algorithms, which causes me even more irritation. Watching the brain rot get worse in real time...

aaron695 7/1/2025||

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Drunkfoowl 7/2/2025||

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