Salesforce CEO and cofounder Marc Benioff
Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is trying to get ahead of the race to poach OpenAI’s talent.But his pitch is drawing more interest from internet trolls than OpenAI employees.One OpenAI employee wrote in response, “the company that builds tableau isn’t going to build AGI.”
After the weekend of chaos at OpenAI, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is eyeing an opportunity for new talent.
In a post on X published Monday, the software company CEO offered immediate employment and matching compensation to any OpenAI researcher interested in joining Salesforce’s Einstein Trusted AI research team.
The responses online have ranged from lukewarm to a flat-out cold shoulder to, of course, the inevitable internet snark.
“Lol, like it was ever about compensation,” wrote Boris Power, OpenAI’s head of applied research, in response to Benioff.
Lol, like it was ever about compensation. We got >95% in less than 24 hours, and the compensation never crossed my mind!
Can you give us 700 of our amazing colleagues, then we may budge 🚀
— Boris Power (@BorisMPower) November 20, 2023
OpenAI researcher Tony Wu also publicly declined the offer, writing on X that he was sticking with Altman until the end.
Benioff also pitched directly to OpenAI worker Steven Heidel — who said he wouldn’t use Microsoft Teams even if he made the jump to Microsoft — with an offer to use Slack’s messaging tool instead.
listen, i love slack but the company that builds tableau isn’t going to build AGI
— Steven Heidel (@stevenheidel) November 20, 2023
And then there are the trolls, some of whom are having a field day with Benioff”s post.
“Hey Marc very generous of you. I was the janitor at OpenAI, total comp $1.2m base + $50m equity,” wrote one person. “Looking forward to joining Salesforce!” The comment received 2,200 likes in 10 hours.
Hey Marc very generous of you. I was the janitor at OpenAI, total comp $1.2m base + $50m equity
Look forward to joining Salesforce!
— Not Jim Cramer (@CramerTracker) November 20, 2023
“Its kind of like we’re living in a real life episode of Silicon Valley,” wrote another person.
Its kind of like we’re living in a real life episode of Silicon Valley
— Boring_Business (@BoringBiz_) November 20, 2023
One person wrote, “I don’t work at OpenAI but I’ve been using ChatGPT for the past week and made a GPT agent that answers all of my wife’s texts with a Seinfeld joke. Could I send in my CV for consideration?”
Hey Marc, I don’t work at OpenAI but I’ve been using ChatGPT for the past week and made a GPT agent that answers all of my wife’s texts with a Seinfeld joke.
Could I send in my CV for consideration?
— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) November 20, 2023
Internet snark aside, what remains to be seen here is how many people are emailing Benioff directly for a job — he shared his email in his original post.
Benioff did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside regular business hours.