Season 1 · Episode 15
E15: $100 Million to Switch Jobs?! The Insane AI Talent War of 2025
The AI Cookbook: AI Tools | Enterprise AI | Leadership · Malcolm Werchota
July 15, 202512m 50sExplicit
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Show Notes
The AI talent war just went nuclear—and your company might already be losing.
In this high-energy episode, Malcolm breaks down the absolutely mental 2025 AI talent battles where Meta's throwing $100-200 million bonuses at individual engineers, OpenAI shut down for a week due to burnout, and entry-level AI roles start at $186K.
You'll discover:
- Why Meta's poaching 10+ researchers with $300M packages (and still losing talent)
- The shocking retention rates: Meta 64% vs Anthropic 80%
- How OpenAI's 80-hour work weeks forced a company-wide shutdown
- Why Google paid $2B just for Character.AI's team (not the product!)
- Real hacks to compete without billions: talent analyzer agents, culture fixes, and more
- Malcolm's take on why "culture beats cash" every single time