--- title: "The AI Researchers That Mark Zuckerberg Lured to Work for Him With Huge Payments Are Already Quitting for Mysterious Reasons" description: "Mark Zuckerberg offered AI talent incredible sums to come work for him at Meta -- but just months in, they've already started to depart." date: "2025-08-27" modified: "2025-08-27" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/ai-researchers-mark-zuckerberg-already-quitting" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Meta" tags: - "artificial intelligence" - "facebook" - "mark zuckerberg" - "Meta" --- # The AI Researchers That Mark Zuckerberg Lured to Work for Him With Huge Payments Are Already Quitting for Mysterious Reasons ![Mark Zuckerberg offered AI talent incredible sums to come work for him at Meta -- but just months in, they've already started to depart.]() *\Image: Shawn Thew / Pool / AFP via Getty / Futurism\* Even in the money-soaked world of AI, the hiring efforts of Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg [stood out this year]() as he enticed top machine learning researchers with payments [reportedly reaching up to $1 billion]() to defect from their employers and come work for him instead. The overtures weren't always successful; in [one embarrassing case](), an individual was offered 10-figures to work at Meta's so-called Superintelligence initiative — but turned it down to stay at Thinking Machines Lab, a venture started by former OpenAI executive Mira Murati. And now, amid reporting that Zuckerberg's micromanaging already has the company's AI efforts [crumbling into internal chaos](), it sounds like the Facebook parent company is already bleeding some of the talent that Zuckerberg paid top dollar to acquire. As [*Wired* reports](), at least three staffers have already punched out for good. Gone are Avi Verma and Ethan Knight, both poached from OpenAI — and both of whom are now headed back there after a taste of Zuckerberg's management style, according to the magazine. Also departing is Rishabh Agarwal, who joined a few months ago, as well as Chaya Nayak, a longtime product manager at Meta who's also jumping ship to OpenAI. For their part, the researchers are either declining to comment or keeping their reasons for departing pointedly vague. "It was a tough decision not to continue with the new Superintelligence TBD lab, especially given the talent and compute density," Agarwal wrote on [X-formerly-Twitter](). "But after 7.5 years across Google Brain, DeepMind, and Meta, I felt the pull to take on a different kind of risk." He also took the opportunity to turn Zuckerberg's words against him, adding that "I ultimately choose to follow Mark's own advice: 'In a world that’s changing so fast, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk.'" Speaking to *Wired*, a Meta spokesperson tried to rationalize the departures. "During an intense recruiting process, some people will decide to stay in their current job rather than starting a new one," they told the magazine. "That's normal." That's not entirely wrong. In the red-hot AI race, researchers do tend to jump between employers at a rapid pace, both to secure more money, but also at times to make what they [frame as ethical decisions]() about which tech companies are trying to build responsible products. OpenAI, for instance, has [hemorrhaged employees]() who went on to start Anthropic, Safe Superintelligence, Perplexity, xAI, Eureka Labs, the aforementioned Thinking Machines, and more. So weep not, Mark — at least you're in good company. **More on AI:** [*There's a Very Basic Flaw in Mark Zuckerberg's Plan for Superintelligent AI*]() ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()