Meta has implemented a hiring freeze within its AI organization. This decision comes immediately after a significant restructuring of the unit earlier this week. The freeze was reported to have gone into effect last week, and its duration remains unclear.
This move follows a period where Meta aggressively recruited talent from its competitors, successfully poaching more than 50 AI researchers and engineers in recent weeks. The company’s restructuring split its former Meta Superintelligence Labs into four distinct new groups. These groups are TBD Labs, which is run by former Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang, and three other groups focused on research, product integration, and infrastructure.
Meta confirmed the hiring freeze, describing it as a part of basic organizational planning. The company stated this action is routine after bringing new people on board and completing its yearly budgeting and planning exercises.
The hiring freeze occurs amidst Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s intense push to achieve a leading position in the artificial intelligence race. This ambition has ignited serious competition for talent. Zuckerberg has personally contacted top researchers and engineers, offering them compensation packages reportedly worth up to nine figures. The company has also pursued its goals by acquiring other AI startups and sometimes just their leadership teams.
Analysts have begun to warn that the company’s increasing costs, particularly from stock-based compensation used to attract this high-level talent, could potentially threaten future shareholder returns.