Latest news with #Silicon Valley
Phone Arena
an hour ago
- Business
- Phone Arena
Apple's brain drain woes unlikely to end anytime soon unless it starts making employees millionaires
There has been a massive problem plaguing Apple for a while now: its AI researchers keep getting scooped up by Meta. According to industry insider Mark Gurman's newsletter Power On, this brain drain from Apple is very unlikely to end anytime soon, unless the company pays its employees what Meta is CEO Mark Zuckerberg is convinced of two things: AR glasses are the future, and AI will be the backbone of said glasses. As such, Meta has invested billions of Dollars into XR ( Extended Reality ) over the last few years, and is now doing the same for Artificial Intelligence. It's Apple that is suffering, as now a fifth AI researcher has left the company to join Meta's Superintelligence Labs group. Naturally, this also puts the already underdeveloped Apple Intelligence at even greater risk. Zuckerberg has been offering mouthwatering amounts of money to AI researchers. According to Gurman, the low morale at Apple has meant that many have been grateful for the offer. Further departures from Apple aren't just likely, but almost expected at this everyone is willing to work for Meta, however. Recently, Meta offered a billion Dollars to one researcher, but they declined the offer. Their colleagues, who were offered up to $500 million each, all also turned Meta down. The workers cited problems with Meta's leadership for their Apple's continued failings with the new Siri have meant that the company's employees haven't been picky about who offers them a better deal. The revamped Siri marketed in 2024 is nowhere to be found. | Image credit — Apple Still, this hasn't stopped Apple from trying its best to ensure that a better version of Siri makes it to its user base sooner rather than later. The company has been quietly working on improvements for its App Intents framework, which means that certain Siri features are closer to launch than you might think. As for Mark Zuckerberg's aforementioned fascination with AI-powered AR smart glasses, Apple is also taking a keen interest in a pair of glasses of its own. Samsung and Google, with their Project Moohan running on Android XR, are also ultimately aiming for smart AR glasses to replace the smartphone.
New York Times
5 hours ago
- Business
- New York Times
Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle.
Growing up near Silicon Valley, Manasi Mishra remembers seeing tech executives on social media urging students to study computer programming. 'The rhetoric was, if you just learned to code, work hard and get a computer science degree, you can get six figures for your starting salary,' Ms. Mishra, now 21, recalls hearing as she grew up in San Ramon, Calif. Those golden industry promises helped spur Ms. Mishra to code her first website in elementary school, take advanced computing in high school and major in computer science in college. But after a year of hunting for tech jobs and internships, Ms. Mishra graduated from Purdue University in May without an offer. 'I just graduated with a computer science degree, and the only company that has called me for an interview is Chipotle,' Ms. Mishra said in a get-ready-with-me TikTok video this summer that has since racked up more than 147,000 views. Since the early 2010s, a parade of billionaires, tech executives and even U.S. presidents has urged young people to learn coding, arguing that the tech skills would help bolster students' job prospects as well as the economy. Tech companies promised computer science graduates high salaries and all manner of perks. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Sam Altman says the talent pool for AI superstars is probably bigger than people think
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said AI has created the most "intense talent market" he's ever seen. AI companies are now paying top AI researchers and engineers as much as superstar athletes. Altman, however, thinks the talent pool is likely bigger than the market realizes. There's a new slate of MVPs in the labor market. Over the past several months, a talent war has been rippling through Silicon Valley as companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic vie for an elite group of the best and the brightest working on artificial intelligence. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called it the "most intense talent market I have seen in my career," on CNBC's Squawk Box on Friday, a day after OpenAI released GPT-5, the latest iteration of its flagship model. Altman, however, says that fighting over a chosen few may not be necessary. "I bet it's much bigger than people think," he said, referring to the available talent pool. "Some companies in the space have decided that they're going to go after a few shiny names, but I think there's like many thousands of people that we could find, and probably tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people in the world who are capable of doing this kind of work." Meta, which recently brought on Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman to co-lead its newly created Superintelligence Labs, made at least 10 offers of up to $300 million over four years to top OpenAI researchers. It also offered OpenAI employees huge signing bonuses to make the switch. Business Insider earlier reported that researchers at many of the top AI startups are earning in the mid-six-figures for their skills. More than any other field, AI bets on potential over proven track records, as companies race toward still-theoretical goals like artificial general intelligence and superintelligence. The real value of top AI talent, Altman said, lies in their capacity for breakthroughs. "The hope is they know how to discover the remaining ideas to get to superintelligence, that there are going to be a handful of algorithm ideas, and a medium-sized handful of people who can figure them out," he said. Read the original article on Business Insider Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
A mysterious substance on Mars might be an undiscovered mineral
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. One way scientists study planets is by looking at the minerals on their surfaces. They can tell us a lot about how worlds form. Scientists have been looking at unusual layers of iron sulfates on Mars, and these layers may represent a whole new mineral. Janice Bishop, a research scientist at the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute and NASA Ames Research Center in California's sSilicon Valley, has led a study that dives into these mysterious Martian formations. "We investigated two sulfate-bearing sites near the vast Valles Marineris canyon system that included mysterious spectral bands seen from orbital data, as well as layered sulfates and intriguing geology," Bishop said in a statement. Using data gathered by Mars orbiters, Bishop and her team studied sites with an odd spectral signature — that of an iron-bearing mineral called a ferric hydroxysulfate. Aside from Valles Marineris, they also looked at the plateau above another huge canyon, called Juventae Chasma, and an impact crater known as Aram Chaos. After analyzing the orbiter data, the team hit the lab. They wanted to learn more about the conditions that transform common sulfates into ferric hydroxysulfates — and they got some intriguing results. "Our experiments suggest that this ferric hydroxysulfate only forms when hydrated ferrous sulfates are heated in the presence of oxygen," said Johannes Meusburger, a researcher at NASA Ames who worked on the team. The team even managed to create the mysterious mineral in the lab. "The material formed in these lab experiments is likely a new mineral due to its unique crystal structure and thermal stability," Bishop said. "However, scientists must also find it on Earth to officially recognize it as a new mineral." RELATED STORIES — Mars: Everything you need to know about the Red Planet — What happened to all the water on Mars? Here's why the debate continues — Life on Mars: Exploration and evidence This mineral, and how it formed, could give us clues on the way that heat, water, and chemical reactions mold the surface of Mars. "The findings suggest parts of Mars have been chemically and thermally active more recently than scientists once believed — offering new insight into the planet's dynamic surface and its potential to have supported life," SETI representatives wrote in the statement. The paper about the Martian mineral was published in the journal Nature Communications on Aug. 5.
Bloomberg
2 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Ex-OpenAI, DeepMind Staffers Set for $1 Billion Value in Andreessen-Led Round
Venture firm Andreessen Horowitz has agreed to lead a $200 million investment in Periodic Labs, a new startup building artificial intelligence for material science, according to people familiar with the matter. The agreement values Periodic Labs at $1 billion before the investment, an impressive price for a months-old company, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private.
