WIRED's Kylie Robison on the OpenAI AGI paper suppression, the $100M offer debate, and what comes next in the talent war

So um that's that's one location. The other one is in the is in um the Atlantic Ocean um which then would lead to some of the first survivors potentially leaving the Atlantis and going to Ireland um to set up the the next modern day civilization. Okay. Okay.

We're bringing back next time we're getting to the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle. Uh but thanks so much for stopping by. This is fantastic. We'll talk to you soon, Will. Great having you on, Will. Thanks for having us. Cheers. Bye. Really quickly, let me When we find Atlantis, you know what we're doing.

Cure the cure for male loneliness being called lads. Lads. Yeah. Uh what are we doing? What's the first thing? The first thing, set up a wander. That's right. You got to find your happy place. Find your happy place.

Book a wander with inspiring views, hotel grade amenities, dreamy beds, top tier cleaning, and 24/7 concier service. It's a vacation home better. A video dropping with Wander this week. Cannot wait to release. And we have a new guest dropping on the stream. We are surrounded by journalists. hold your position.

Uh we're going to bring in Kylie. Kylie did the reporting that we covered uh for Wired covering the leaked uh the leaked memo. Very cool. Um so let's bring her on in. There she is. What's happening? Welcome to the stream. Hello. Hello. My first time. Thanks for having me. First of many hopefully. Uh how's the day going?

You've been scooping scooping up a storm. Yeah, it's been busy. Um, just that this morning and tweeting non-stop and now you guys. Fantastic. Awesome. Uh, so what did your what did your weekend look like? What's the god what's like? Break down like a a a weekend of of scoops. It's pushing signal messenger to the max.

Um, well, it was Pride weekend here in San Francisco, so that wasn't uh fun to combine. I helped a friend move and then I got the first scoop and ran to Pride in Dolores, drank a bunch of White Claws, ran home, slept for 12 hours and um my editor started scooping again.

Then we're scooping again Monday first thing in the morning scooping the Everything's been moving quickly. What was the first scoop and and maybe like break that down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that was Friday.

I reported on a research paper that's not being released at OpenAI because it talks about the definition of AGI and uh sources have said that allegedly managers were saying that the Microsoft deal and those neg negotiations were a reason for not releasing that paper and it's really really tense as the journal and Reuters have reported those negotiations.

Then Saturday for OpenAI researchers went to Meta's new lab. Sunday, uh, Mark Chen, uh, an executive at OpenAI, sent out a memo saying they're basically Meta's basically robbing our home. Uh, my editor published that one. And this morning, Mark Zuckerberg sent out a list of all his new hires. It's been fun. Huge.

So, we got to ask, who's your source? No, I'm kidding. Um, you're not going on the record as you guys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, no. So, um, yeah, I'm I'm curious kind of what what you expect next in this in this saga.

Do you expect I mean it clearly OpenAI is not seeing Zach announced his current list and being like, okay, we're safe now. We don't, you know, we don't have to worry. But at the same time, you know, it's very possible that the worst behind them. Yeah.

My my question I talked to Will about this was just like were you surprised that the memo didn't lean more on the fact that this has happened like three or four times at OpenAI and they've gotten through it every time?

Like I would be leaning on the fact that like yeah Daario left, Elon started XAI, Thinking Machines exists, SSI exists, we we still have 90% penetration in consumer AI. walk down the street, ask someone what they use for AI, they're not even gonna say OpenAI or Chat GBT. They're just gonna say chat.

And and and just leaning into that that that hey, we are this compounding dominant force in consumer AI. This is the place that you want to stay and be as opposed to getting I think a little bit more in the weeds of like the nature of the deal. It felt like an appeal maybe not very defensive and and came across.

I mean, they were clearly scared. Yeah. Yeah. It it seemed very focused on like the the the the actual dynamics of like how how one of these offers comes together as opposed to just um just reiterating the strengths that like here you get to work on the consumer product in AI. Yeah.

Yeah, it was it was like a lot of messaging around please talk to us if you're if you're getting offers versus let's rally, let's let's all be in the like let's ride.

Yeah, I think it's you know a big part of it came over the weekends like these people are just these executives are scrambling to tell staff like for the love of God do not talk to anyone at Meta and sign any offers and they're going on this like weekl long break next week.

So, I think they were just trying to get ahead of that. But I think that your guys's argument that's right. I think it's just like a very emotional, high stress time.

They're trying to ship to very large models and Mark Zuckerberg's coming in calling employees directly and offering millions and millions and millions of dollars.

So, I think like their response is emotional and defensive because it's like just so high stress, but that would have been a good tactic and I don't doubt it's coming eventually. How how solid do you think you are on the $und00 million offer?

That's been floated multiple times and yeah, and we were kind of digging through the game theory of it like in in one way it benefits Sam to get that number out because if someone if Mark tries to poach someone for 50, they might be like, "Ah, I've been hearing that everyone's getting a hundred. " Like come on.

Thought I was one of your top guys. I thought I was near the top of your list.

And then and then you know it in some ways it benefits Mark because at at at Meta because if you're hearing about these hundred million offers you might be more willing to take that preliminary phone call because you know that they are ready to put money where their mouth is. And so it kind of benefits both sides.

Dylan Patel was on a podcast a couple days ago talking about how they're not really sending a hundred million dollar wire with cash on day one that the there's earnouts to these structures and they can claw it back if you don't say and so how much nuance do you think there is on on that number specifically because it's certainly headline grabbing the the the Wall Street Journal I mean they they put it in the special infographic right here like because 100 million is a nice round number and it reads very well and it works in a headline, but I'm just wondering if you think if you think it's 100% real or 50/50 or there's more nuance to it.

Yeah. So, my take is the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times both printed that number and they have really really rigorous editorial standards to get get to print. So, they must have seen something, some highle sources that proved to them that that number is real.

I for one have not seen that number and for me I would have to see an offer letter with that number. But knowing how tech salaries work, I don't think it's just like a wire transfer. it's, you know, going to be golden handcuffs. It's going to be over a certain amount of time.

And, uh, you know, the information had a really good story breaking down, you know, researcher salaries. And just imagine if you came to OpenAI a couple years ago at 80 billion, 40 billion valuation and what that is now. They don't really need um, you know, all this crazy money from Meta.

Uh, but it is attention grabbing. Attention grabbing for sure. It's also just funny when you when you say hund00 million for one person, it sounds like a lot.

But if you were to say we're going to spend $5 billion to put together a team that is super core to our entire business and win, it doesn't feel nearly as significant for a company that is a multi-trillion dollar company. So, I'm looking at the the the the WhatsApp acquisition price and number of employees.

I'm pretty sure they paid more than $100 million per person because it was $19 billion. Uh4 billion in cash, 14 billion in Facebook shares which are probably worth like 120 billion now because this is in 2014. And at the time WhatsApp was a remarkably lean team with around 50 employees. So I mean not far off.

I mean what if they had slightly different comp though just given that they were buying a product with Totally. Yeah. Yeah. the product super valuable, but you know, the the the the researchers that can build the next model and and bring Llama to the frontier makes a lot of sense.

Um, what what else should we dig into here? I think that was it. Any Yeah, I I don't know if you touched on this specifically, but any any any like specific predictions about what comes next or you just waiting waiting for one of your little birdies to send you a note?

Well, if you're watching birdies, my signal is kylie. I will be impressed if they get someone of Ilia's Ilia Susver's capabilities.

I think that the people who want to build super intelligence are true believers and you're giving them a value proposition of we will give you so much money but you're making super intelligence for Mark Zuckerberg.

And I think that some of the best brains that really believe in AGI is this prosperous future or you know perhaps the end of humanity don't necessarily want to do that for Mark Zuckerberg. Uh so I will be impressed if he gets one of those minds. Uh he still has about 50 people he wants to hire for this team.

So it's just going to keep coming. I think a lot of them are going to continue coming from the top labs. Uh but what the vision is, what Mark's vision is, I'm waiting to see. So uh what about la last question? What about Daniel Gross?

It had been initially reported but but he wasn't on the wasn't on the list that that you released earlier. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed that neither was the um the team from Switzerland. I'm going to guess this is pure speculation. For Switzerland, they have EU laws that make it uh strange to employ them right away.

But for Daniel Gross, I'm not sure what happened. I saw that was reported by the information with Nat Freiedman. I tried to be in touch with anyone who could tell me if Daniel's going, but he wasn't on the list. So, uh I guess we'll see. Yeah.