Aussie turns down billion-dollar offer from Mark Zuckerberg
A Sydney uni graduate who has gone on to be one the leading minds in AI reportedly knocked back Meta’s mammoth bid.
An Australian artificial intelligence “genius” reportedly knocked back a billion-dollar package to defect to Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta as part of its aggressive recruitment drive.
Perth-raised Andrew Tulloch has established himself as a leader in the AI industry after more than a decade at Facebook’s parent company and more recently its competitor OpenAI.
In February the University of Sydney graduate co-founded start-up Thinking Machines Lab, alongside former OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati, which has a reported value of US$12 billion ($18.5 billion).
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The Wall Street Journal reports that Mr Zuckerberg this year approached Ms Murati to buy Thinking Machines Lab, and when she refused he attempted to poach its star workers.
Sources told the Journal he offered Mr Tulloch a package of US$1 billion ($1.55 billion), which could have been worth even more after bonuses and stocks performance, over six years.
Mr Tulloch refused the offer, according to the report, although Meta told the newspaper the figures it cited were “inaccurate and ridiculous”.
The Australian spent 11 years at Facebook’s AI arm specialising in machine learning technology after moving to the US in 2012, rising to the role of distinguished engineer.
“He was definitely known as an extreme genius,” Mike Vernal, a former Facebook executive who worked with Mr Tulloch, told the Journal.
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He then moved to rival OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, in 2023 before branching out with former colleagues to form their start-up in January of this year.
Thinkin Machines Lab has a stated mission of making “AI systems more widely understood, customizable and generally capable”.
Ms Murati recently said it was “building multimodal AI that works with how you naturally interact with the world”, but has not yet released its first product.
Mr Tulloch was a vice capatain at Christ Church Grammar in Claremont, Western Australia, achieving an ATAR of 99.95 in 2007.
In his university days he graduated with first class honours and the university medal in mathematics at Sydney uni in 2011, with the highest GPA in the Faculty of Science.
He worked at Goldman Sachs as a quant while studying before completing a masters in mathematical statistics and machine learning at the University of Cambridge.
In June, OpenAI boss Sam Altman revealed Meta had offered US$100 million bonuses ($155 million) to his employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach talent for its generative AI teams.
Mr Altman also said Mr Zuckerberg’s company offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers.
“I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them up on that,” he said.
Meta chief executive Mr Zuckerberg said in January that the firm planned to invest at least US$60 billion ($92 billion) in AI this year, with ambitions to lead in the technology.
Its revenue jumped 22 per cent year-on-year to US$47.5 billion ($76.73 billion) in figures released last week, attributed to its AI developments.
“We’ve had a strong quarter both in terms of our business and community,” Mr Zuckerberg said.
“I’m excited to build personal superintelligence for everyone in the world.”
Originally published as Aussie turns down billion-dollar offer from Mark Zuckerberg
