> “While TBD Labs is still relatively new, we believe it has the greatest compute-per-researcher in the industry, and that will only increase,” Meta said.
> Avi Verma, a former OpenAI researcher, went through Meta’s onboarding process but never showed up for his first day, according to a person familiar with the matter.
I don't get it. You voluntarily choose to leave a very highly paid job in favor of an extremely high paid job, and then you... just don't show up to work? What could possibly go so wrong between the time of signing the job contract and showing up to work on day 1?
Counteroffer, or after the onboarding you realize that Meta is a huge corporation and that's just not for you.
As someone who has worked at both the biggest corps and the smallest startups (and in between), I can see how going from OpenAI to Meta could hit you like a truck after you do onboarding.
There is no contract, you didn't break anything because there's nothing to break.
Don't like it? Great, I don't either. Do something about at will employment.
The reality is that at will employment is abused 1 million to 1 by companies versus laborers. We truly, genuinely, do not give a single fuck when companies screw people over.
We shouldn't, then, care when people do it back. That sucks, sure, so change the laws.
Contract is an agreement between two or more parties. It can be broken, you just need to bear the consequences - either get sued or find employment somewhere else. It’s not a governor module that kills you if you don’t comply.
In such cases, would the person still get the signing bonus? Or are these contracts always written with some contingency that the person has to remain for a period?
Either way if a company is willing to throw money to hire you, you probably have enough leverage to get them to write a custom contract in your favor.
Usually the way it works is you get signing bonus with your first paycheck, and then you have to return a prorated amount if you leave before the first year. It's possible they negotiated something better, but unlikely.
Amazon avoids this problem altogether by paying the signing bonus 1/52 with each bi-weekly paycheck for the first two years. They also do the proration on five workdays in a week when it's in their favor, but seven days in a week when it's in your favor, so they win either way.
They would not. And most of these flashy numbers are paid in options, which typically do not begin vesting for 1 year. That bit is negotiable depending on the stock plan, but in any event, certainly no value is given to the employee on day -1 or 0.
When you are paid tens of million to work and have endless options, treating you as employer, or expecting you to implement some assholes vision and not your own is not the way forward.
Maybe you know some of the people who've already started and just got re-orged _for the fourth time in six months_ (per the article)?
I mean, if it was me, and I had a bit of a buffer (which, y'know, you'd assume most people in this position do), there'd be a temptation to say "screw that, life's too short", and take a few months off before looking for a job somewhere less silly.
> Meta said this allegation was “manufactured tension without basis in fact that’s clearly being pushed by dramatic, navel-gazing busybodies.”
Was this bombastic, “nyah-nyah,” “I know you are but what am I” style of public communication a thing before the current president hired spokespeople who behave this way?
If it’s at all indicative of how things work inside that company, I’d be out the door on the first day too, no matter how many absurd millions were supposedly on offer…
At least in my experience when doing investigative journo stuff, it's rare but it happens. The spokespeople who've done it towards me have been around for long enough that it's not unknown behavior.
I mean, I guess if the all of the substantive facts are against you, it makes sense that your only move is to kick up dust this way. I just don’t see how it helps: they just come off looking desperate.
Then again I don’t use the socials, maybe that’s what I’m missing.
I feel like it's kind of counterproductive; it comes across as "what you are saying is true, but we are not happy about, and also how very dare you say it", in a way that the more conventional "[blah] declined to comment", or a simple denial, does not.
Like, it's hard to see how it's a _good_ media relations strategy.
It definitely has that petty, defensive vibe similar to the current administration as well as Elon Musk companies. Narcissistic leadership seems to be the common characteristic
Right now, DeepSeek feels like it comes from the most trustworthy source, which is not something I would've said a few months ago.
In the short term I'll keep using OpenAI, Llama, Claude and Perplexity for what each does best. In the mid term, I'm looking for replacements for all 4
There's 0 chance they stop releasing open stuff. They are still way behind, so they have all the same incentives they had before to release models - brand recognition, devs engaged with their stack, slow down competition and so on. They will keep some models internal, or further train them on different datasets (internal?) for their own product use, but the "small" models (1-200ish B params) will be released in open weights for the foreseeable future.
When the first names were announced I read some comments on r/LocalLLaMA that they assembled a team with too many high egos and this was going to fall apart, because of general soft-skills issues.
I know nothing about the situation, but that comment was strangely specific
Readit News
Well, two ways to make that true!
I don't get it. You voluntarily choose to leave a very highly paid job in favor of an extremely high paid job, and then you... just don't show up to work? What could possibly go so wrong between the time of signing the job contract and showing up to work on day 1?
As someone who has worked at both the biggest corps and the smallest startups (and in between), I can see how going from OpenAI to Meta could hit you like a truck after you do onboarding.
Don't like it? Great, I don't either. Do something about at will employment.
The reality is that at will employment is abused 1 million to 1 by companies versus laborers. We truly, genuinely, do not give a single fuck when companies screw people over.
We shouldn't, then, care when people do it back. That sucks, sure, so change the laws.
Either way if a company is willing to throw money to hire you, you probably have enough leverage to get them to write a custom contract in your favor.
Amazon avoids this problem altogether by paying the signing bonus 1/52 with each bi-weekly paycheck for the first two years. They also do the proration on five workdays in a week when it's in their favor, but seven days in a week when it's in your favor, so they win either way.
These guys already have Fuck-you-money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuck-you-money
I mean, if it was me, and I had a bit of a buffer (which, y'know, you'd assume most people in this position do), there'd be a temptation to say "screw that, life's too short", and take a few months off before looking for a job somewhere less silly.
Was this bombastic, “nyah-nyah,” “I know you are but what am I” style of public communication a thing before the current president hired spokespeople who behave this way?
If it’s at all indicative of how things work inside that company, I’d be out the door on the first day too, no matter how many absurd millions were supposedly on offer…
Then again I don’t use the socials, maybe that’s what I’m missing.
Like, it's hard to see how it's a _good_ media relations strategy.
A spokesperson who said things like that would get fired immediately from any civilized company. Draw your own conclusions.
Deleted Comment
In the short term I'll keep using OpenAI, Llama, Claude and Perplexity for what each does best. In the mid term, I'm looking for replacements for all 4
Go deepseek. Go llama.
Nay grok.
I know nothing about the situation, but that comment was strangely specific