Recently chatted with some startup teams in Hong Kong.

Talking about how Meta has recently been like buying players.
Burning hundreds of millions of dollars to poach talent from various AI giants
Why is 40% mined from OpenAI?
A few former Meta employees were recruited from Anthropic.

This is because Anthropic is rooted in company culture.
Just keep providing value to employees.
Labels like "Safety First," "Developer Friendly," and "People Over Technology" are being heavily applied to themselves.
This way, employees under the premise of high salaries
Will not be poached for higher wages.

In contrast, OpenAI has lost its clear value amidst the controversies of profit vs public good, open source vs closed source, safety vs freedom, and the board's dismissal, which is the main reason for its remaining employees to dig deeper.

The higher the level of talent, the harder it is to bind them solely with money. This is the principle of diminishing marginal utility of money. Values are mainstream, and personal charm of the founder, blood relations, marriage ties, local/geographical connections, and revolutionary camaraderie can also be effective.

Many academic studies focus on equity distribution/options incentives for startup teams, which adds another layer beyond money, but truly binding core figures requires more.

Talked more about these companies and the stories of Figma, Canva, and Vercel with friends at @Trickle_HQ in Shenzhen, which sparked these thoughts in me.