Apple Continues Losing AI Experts to Meta

A fourth Apple artificial intelligence expert has joined Meta, following a trend of talent migration. Bowen Zhang, from Apple's foundation models team, is the latest to move to Meta's Superintelligence Labs. This division is actively recruiting advanced AI talent to build human-level intelligence systems. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly offering significant compensation packages to attract AI engineers. Ruoming Pang, a former leader at Apple's foundation models group, allegedly received over $200 million from Meta. These lucrative offers, including high salaries and stock awards, exceed compensation for most Apple employees, except top executives. OpenAI's CEO also noted Meta's generous signing bonuses of up to $100 million. Meta has successfully recruited AI experts from major companies like Apple, OpenAI, and Anthropic. This talent drain could hinder Apple's progress in the competitive AI landscape. Apple is reportedly increasing pay for its foundation models team, but not to Meta's level. The company is also restructuring its AI teams and considering third-party AI technology due to morale issues and employee departures.