Salesforce CEO’s job offer turned down by OpenAI researchers

Enterprise software major Salesforce’s Chair and CEO Marc Benioff on Tuesday offered jobs to any OpenAI researcher who has tendered resignation and their immigration is impacted, as more than 500 OpenAI staffers threaten to quit after Microsoft hired former CEO Sam Altman and ex-president Greg Brockman.

However, several OpenAI researchers turned down Benioff’s job offer.

In a post on X, Benioff said if your immigration is now impacted by Open AI on O1, H1B, or other visa, then Salesforce will match “full cash and equity OTE (open trade equity)” of those who quit OpenAI “to immediately join our Salesforce Einstein Trusted AI research team under Silvio Savarese”.

“Send me your CV directly to ceo@salesforce.com. Einstein is the most successful enterprise AI Platform completing 1 trillion predictive & generative transactions this week! Join our Trusted AI Enterprise Revolution,” the Salesforce CEO wrote.

Responding to the Salesforce CEO’s post, OpenAI’s Tony Wu praised Benioff’s offer but stated that he will continue to work with Sam Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman till the end.

“@Benioff This is a super generous offer! I’m sure my team really appreciates it. But we’re with @sama @miramurati and @gdb to the end,” Wu wrote.

Steven Heidel, another OpenAI employee, received a direct offer from Benioff, which he turned down with a humorous response.

“Listen, I love Slack but the company that builds tableau isn’t going to build AGI,” Heidel wrote.

Boris Power, Head of Applied Research at OpenAI, stated that people were not leaving because of compensation.

“Lol, like it was ever about compensation. We got >95 per cent in less than 24 hours, and the compensation never crossed my mind!,” Power said.

Salesforce this year committed $500 million to invest in generative artificial intelligence(AI) startups.

The investment, an expansion from earlier $250 million to $500 million now, is part of its Generative AI Fund to support startups developing “responsible generative AI”.

According to Salesforce Ventures managing partner Paul Drews, it will help the company to “work with even more entrepreneurs, accelerating the development of transformative AI solutions for the enterprise”.

(With inputs from IANS)