Divy Thakkar disputes Jessica Lessin's framing of AI talent flows as competitive lab hiring sweeps

Summer 2025: Meta raids OpenAI Summer 2026: Anthropic raids Google

Here's what's important to remember:

AI researchers are motivated by a range of things that shift very quickly -- working on what's perceived as best models, access to compute, then maybe money.

I think a ton of talent movement is a given in a field like AI. I would look at the multi-year talent flows, not flows in a given month.

I think the market's reaction to the day-to-day movements just shows how nervous investors still are and how little they feel like they understand the long-term opportunities around the companies.

Summer 2025: Meta raids OpenAI Summer 2026: Anthropic raids Google

Here's what's important to remember:

AI researchers are motivated by a range of things that shift very quickly -- working on what's perceived as best models, access to compute, then maybe money.

I think a ton of talent movement is a given in a field like AI. I would look at the multi-year talent flows, not flows in a given month.

I think the market's reaction to the day-to-day movements just shows how nervous investors still are and how little they feel like they understand the long-term opportunities around the companies.