@distributionat What’s the diff between TBD and MSL? Thought it’s the same? Or is TBD part of MSL?
$$$ AI researchers switching labs recently—
* xAI cleaned house and having a hard time refilling talent. Shifted to hiring more startup / engineer grinder types vs researchers. Narrowed focus to code. * Cursor having talent trouble + identity crisis: undercapitalized financially relative to team talent level. * Project Prometheus (Bezos) quietly snapping up talent. Many key hires recently. Potential to be major player. * Anthropic remains most desirable, even more than last 6mo, few leave. Difficult to poach from with upcoming IPO. Only hiring staff or above and stopped hiring even senior. * TBD (Meta) also keeps snapping up top talent quietly. MSL seen as significantly less desirable. * Thinking Machines has somewhat stabilized after departures earlier this year. Star studded still but not an auto-pick for talent newly on market. * OAI churning as always, both from normal burnout bleed and latest reshuffle axing non-core divisions. * Not super sure what’s going on with GDM wrt talent. Perpetually #3 spot on model ranking.
Overall, talent flow is net flowing out of undercapitalized neolabs to highly capitalized neolabs or Anthropic.