30 August 2024
Microsoft, Google and Amazon, along with other tech companies, have been getting creative in how they’re poaching talent from top artificial intelligence startups. Earlier this month, Google inked an unusual deal with Character.ai to hire away its prominent founder, Noam Shazeer, along with more than one-fifth of its workforce while also licensing its technology. It looked like an acquisition, but the deal was structured so that it wasn’t. Google wasn’t the first to take this approach.
In March, Microsoft signed a deal with Inflection that allowed Microsoft to use Inflection’s models and to hire most of the startup’s staff. Amazon followed in June with a faux acquisition of Adept where it hired top talent from the AI startup and licensed its technology.
It’s a playbook that skirts regulators and their crackdown on Big Tech dominance, provides an exit for AI startups struggling to make money, and allows megacaps to pick up the talent needed in the AI arms race. But while tech giants might think they’re outsmarting antitrust enforcers, they could be playing with fire. CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa has the story.
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