The competition for top AI talent has reached unprecedented levels, with Google paying a staggering $2.7 billion to bring back AI pioneer Noam Shazeer, co-founder of Character.ai. According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, while the deal was structured as a technology licensing agreement rather than a formal acquisition, the primary objective was to convince Shazeer to rejoin Google, where he now leads development of the next version of Gemini AI.
Shazeer, 48, is no ordinary engineer. He co-authored the groundbreaking 2017 research paper “Attention is All You Need” with seven other Google researchers, a work that fundamentally launched the generative AI boom. After spending over two decades at Google, Shazeer departed in 2021 when the company refused to release his chatbot over concerns about potential inappropriate responses. His startup, Character.ai, grew to approximately 20 million active users monthly, offering a platform where users interact with fictional AI characters and AI celebrities.
The deal netted Shazeer hundreds of millions of dollars personally, according to sources familiar with the matter. This isn’t an isolated incident—Microsoft previously paid Inflection $650 million in a similar licensing deal to recruit founders Mustafa Suleyman and Karen Simonyan. These strategic moves represent what industry insiders call a “clever way to reel in top talent without jumping through all the hoops of a full acquisition,” according to Andree Mendoza, a technical recruiter at Carex Consulting Group.
The recruitment tactics have become increasingly aggressive. Google co-founder Sergey Brin personally helped convince Shazeer to return. Mark Zuckerberg has written personal emails to Google DeepMind researchers, and Meta has reportedly offered positions without interviews. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman personally calls candidates to persuade them to join. As of June, OpenAI had hired at least 44 ex-Google employees.
Experts compare the current AI talent market to professional sports. “Noam Shazeer isn’t just an employee; he’s a star quarterback,” said Conor Grennan, Chief AI Architect at NYU’s Stern School of Business. The investment is considered “money well spent” given the scarcity of individuals with both the technical expertise and proven track record to build billion-dollar AI products.
Key Quotes
Noam Shazeer isn’t just an employee; he’s a star quarterback. There are simply very few individuals like him in the world.
Conor Grennan, Chief AI Architect at NYU’s Stern School of Business, explained why Google’s massive investment makes business sense. This comparison to professional sports illustrates how the AI industry has transformed talent acquisition into a high-stakes competition for rare, exceptional individuals.
Come back to me when you have 10,000 H100 GPUs.
A Meta engineer’s response to Perplexity’s CEO demonstrates how AI talent now evaluates opportunities based on computational resources available. This quote reveals that top engineers prioritize access to cutting-edge infrastructure like Nvidia’s H100 chips, which are essential for advanced AI development.
These strategic licensing agreements are a ‘clever way to reel in top talent without jumping through all the hoops of a full acquisition.’
Andree Mendoza, technical recruiter at Carex Consulting Group, explained the new playbook Big Tech is using. Rather than traditional acquisitions with regulatory scrutiny, companies are structuring deals as licensing agreements that achieve the same talent acquisition goals.
And if just one of these talented individuals ‘hits,’ that’s a product worth billions.
Conor Grennan justified the seemingly excessive spending on AI talent by framing it as venture investment. This perspective explains why companies like Google can rationalize multi-billion dollar deals—the potential return from breakthrough AI products far exceeds the upfront cost.
Our Take
The Shazeer deal represents a watershed moment in technology hiring, where individual contributors command acquisition-level valuations. What’s particularly striking is the structural innovation—using licensing agreements to circumvent acquisition regulations while achieving the same talent objectives. This suggests Big Tech has learned to navigate antitrust scrutiny while continuing consolidation.
The “star quarterback” analogy is apt but concerning. In sports, salary caps prevent runaway spending inequality. In AI, no such limits exist, creating a winner-take-all dynamic that could stifle competition. The prediction that AI will eventually reduce the need for such talent is ironic—we’re paying billions to build the technology that might make these roles obsolete. However, the three-to-four-year timeline suggests significant opportunities remain for AI professionals to capitalize on this unprecedented demand, while smaller companies must find creative ways to compete beyond compensation.
Why This Matters
This story reveals the extraordinary premium that Big Tech companies are willing to pay for elite AI talent, fundamentally reshaping how we understand talent acquisition in the technology sector. The $2.7 billion deal for a single engineer—even one as accomplished as Shazeer—signals that we’ve entered an unprecedented era where individual AI researchers command valuations comparable to entire startups.
The implications extend beyond compensation. These mega-deals are consolidating AI talent within a handful of tech giants—Google, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI—potentially limiting innovation in smaller startups that can’t compete financially. This concentration of talent could determine which companies dominate the AI landscape for the next decade.
For businesses and workers, this trend highlights the critical shortage of specialized AI expertise and suggests that AI development remains highly dependent on human ingenuity despite automation advances. The prediction that this talent war will continue for three to four years before AI becomes capable enough to reduce human dependency indicates we’re still in the early stages of AI development, with significant opportunities—and disruptions—ahead.
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Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-noam-shazeer-deal-ai-talent-hiring-star-quarterbacks-i2024-9