PhDs, elite lab experience, and AI brilliance: Mark Zuckerberg's secret recruitment list for superintelligence lab revealed
, CEO of Meta, is on an aggressive hunt for the brightest minds in artificial intelligence, personally spearheading recruitment for his new superintelligence lab. At the heart of this effort is a carefully curated document known as 'The List'—a roster of top-tier AI talent targeted for Meta's ambitious projects.
According to
The Wall Street Journal
, most names on
The List
hold PhDs from elite institutions like UC Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon, with stints at leading AI hubs such as OpenAI in San Francisco and Google DeepMind in London. Typically in their 20s or 30s, these researchers share a rarefied skill set—deep expertise in calculus, linear algebra, and probability theory—paired with the ability to tackle highly complex, computation-heavy problems.
Productivity Tool
Zero to Hero in Microsoft Excel: Complete Excel guide
By Metla Sudha Sekhar
View Program
Finance
Introduction to Technical Analysis & Candlestick Theory
By Dinesh Nagpal
View Program
Finance
Financial Literacy i e Lets Crack the Billionaire Code
By CA Rahul Gupta
View Program
Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing Masterclass by Neil Patel
By Neil Patel
View Program
Finance
Technical Analysis Demystified- A Complete Guide to Trading
By Kunal Patel
View Program
Productivity Tool
Excel Essentials to Expert: Your Complete Guide
By Study at home
View Program
Artificial Intelligence
AI For Business Professionals Batch 2
By Ansh Mehra
View Program
Zuckerberg has been personally involved in the chase, diving into technical research papers and coordinating candidate outreach with two senior Meta executives via a group chat dubbed 'Recruiting Party.' Prospects are contacted through email, text, or WhatsApp, with priority given to those who have made significant contributions to AI breakthroughs. One recent Meta hire, passionate about algorithm design, perfectly fits this profile.
The AI research world is close-knit, with scientists networking in private Slack and Discord groups to exchange offers and sometimes leverage competing bids to increase their value. Sources confirm Meta has approached dozens of
OpenAI researchers
, heating up Silicon Valley's AI talent war.
At the helm of Zuckerberg's superintelligence initiative is 28-year-old Alexandr Wang—founder of Scale AI and son of Chinese immigrant physicists—whose $14 billion deal with Meta marks one of the costliest hires in history. In response to Meta's recruitment drive, OpenAI has revamped its pay structure, with its CTO even issuing an open letter urging staff to resist Zuckerberg's offers. At one point, the company reportedly paused operations for almost a week.
Live Events
Former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati also revealed that Zuckerberg offered engineers in her team multi-million-dollar packages—yet, remarkably, not a single one has accepted.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
24 minutes ago
- Time of India
$2 billion and counting: Here's how much ChatGPT's mobile app has generated for OpenAI to date
OpenAI 's ChatGPT mobile app has generated $2 billion in global consumer spending since its launch in May 2023, according to a new report from app intelligence provider Appfigures (as seen by TechCrunch). This figure is approximately 30 times the combined lifetime revenue of competing AI mobile apps like Claude , Copilot , and Grok. The analysis shows that the app has earned $1.35 billion so far in 2025, marking a 673% increase from the same period last year. On average, the app is currently generating nearly $193 million per month. That figure is roughly 53 times greater than ChatGPT's closest competitor, Grok , which has generated about $25.6 million so far this year. Grok's estimated average monthly consumer spending stands at $3.6 million, or around 1.9% of ChatGPT's. How ChatGPT app was able to overtake other rival chatbot apps The data indicates that while ChatGPT continues to dominate consumer chatbot usage on mobile devices, these figures don't capture the companies' full revenue streams, which also include web subscriptions and API usage. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Project Management 2.0 with IITD IITD PM Apply Now Undo For context, Grok launched later than ChatGPT in November 2023 and initially lacked stand-alone iPhone or Android apps, operating only within the X platform. Its iOS app rolled out in early January 2025, followed by a Google Play release in March. Spending per download further highlights ChatGPT's advantage: $2.91 globally, compared with Claude at $2.55, Grok at $0.75, and Copilot at $0.28. In the US, ChatGPT leads with $10 per download, contributing 38% of its lifetime revenue, while Germany ranks second with 5.3%. ChatGPT also leads in installs, with an estimated 690 million lifetime downloads versus Grok's 39.5 million. Average monthly downloads now reach about 45 million globally, up 180% from early 2024 levels. In 2025 alone, the app has seen 318 million installs, which is 2.8 times more than during the same period last year. By country, India leads with 13.7% of lifetime downloads, followed by the US with 10.3%. Lava Blaze AMOLED 2: Budget Smartphone with Mid-Range Vibes AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Time of India
32 minutes ago
- Time of India
Former Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal launches new AI startup
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is back in the tech game with Parallel Web Systems , his artificial intelligence (AI) startup designed to change how AI agents interact with the company emerged from stealth mode on Wednesday with a cloud-based research platform with millions of queries from early adopters. It has raised $30 million from prominent investors, including Khosla Ventures Index Ventures , and First Round Capital , according to the company's posts on social builds infrastructure and tools specifically designed for AI agents to interact with the web intelligently. It offers a cloud-based deep research API that lets AI applications conduct real-time research on the internet, accessing and synthesising public web data, and ultimately providing detailed flagship offerings consist of eight distinct AI research engines. Each is designed for different computational needs. This allows AI agents to do complex tasks such as cross-disciplinary synthesis and long-form research. Parallel claims its technology outperforms leading AI models like OpenAI's GPT-5 in benchmarks for web research."Some of the fastest-growing AI companies use Parallel to bring web intelligence directly into their platform and agents. Public enterprises automate traditionally human workflows, exceeding human-level accuracy with Parallel. Coding agents rely on our search to find docs and debug issues," the company said in a blog API agents power coding assistants, knowledge workers, and research automation across sectors. Enterprises also use these agents to automate complex takes on browser-based infrastructure providers as well as large-scale LLM-driven search agents like OpenAI and public launch comes as Agrawal is fighting an ongoing legal battle with Elon Musk over $50 million in unpaid severance from his dismissal as Twitter's CEO in October 2022. This dispute came after Musk's $44 billion acquisition of the social media has alleged that Musk refused to pay out contractual obligations on purpose to Agrawal and other former Twitter senior staff after he took over the company. Musk's counterarguments in legal filings claim Agrawal was fired 'for cause'. No deal has been reached between the parties yet.
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
From non-profit to $500 billion: OpenAI's valuation rise
Academy Empower your mind, elevate your skills Founded in December 2015 as a nonprofit, which Elon Musk will keep reminding chief executive Sam Altman, OpenAI has evolved over the past decade to become one of the world's most valuable private technology companies It started with grants, donations, and modest investments from technology leaders. But recent reports suggest that OpenAI is approaching a $500 billion market capitalisation as current and former employees may sell some shares. The company's valuation remained comparatively low during its early years while it focussed on developing its artificial intelligence (AI) became a unicorn and reached $1 billion in valuation in July 2019 as investor interest grew around AI research and commercialisation. This is when Microsoft was added to the company's cap April 2021, as commercialisation within the tech and enterprise space and the relevance of large language models and generative AI increased, OpenAI's value was pushed to $14 released ChatGPT in November 2022, marking a major juncture for the company. The conversational AI chatbot took the world by storm, with hundreds of thousands using it regularly, and Big Tech peers coming out with rivals in the subsequent year. This pushed OpenAI's valuation to $29 billion by January 2023, OpenAI expanded its offerings with new models and developer tools, such as plug-ins and enterprise APIs, which further accelerated its market February 2024, sustained growth and new product launches had taken OpenAI's valuation to $86 billion. However, a major fillip came in October 2024, when the company closed a $6.6 billion funding round led by major investors including Microsoft, Nvidia, and SoftBank. This round raised OpenAI's valuation to $157 billion, making it one of the highest-valued private companies closed a $40 billion funding round in March led by SoftBank Group, with other investors including Magnetar Capital, Coatue Management, Founders Fund, and Altimeter Capital Management participating. This nearly doubled the market cap to $300 product evolution has continued, with launches like GPT-4 and, most recently, GPT-5 that have increased capabilities and increased adoption across sectors. Bloomberg reported on August 16 that current and former OpenAI employees are in talks to sell about $6 billion worth of stock to investors, including Thrive Capital, SoftBank Group Corp., and Dragoneer Investment Group, in a deal that would value the ChatGPT maker at $500 billion.
