The process, which started with the dismissal of Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the developer of the artificial intelligence chat bot ChatGPT, ended with Altman’s return to his position at the company. During the process, hundreds of OpenAI employees threatened to quit due to Altman’s dismissal. This situation was one of the breaking points of the process.
According to Bloomberg, the fact that hundreds of employees threatened to resign after OpenAI was dismissed as the developer of ChatGPT and then reinstated CEO Sam Altman, reveals how much power the most valuable employees of the technology industry currently have.
THEY ARE CONSIDERED ALMOST IRREPLACEABLE! THEIR SALARIES DRAW ATTENTION
According to the news, the engineers of OpenAI, the pioneer of artificial intelligence, are seen as almost irreplaceable, ‘indispensable’. This situation seems to be reflected in the salaries of employees.
AI engineers earn between 8% and 12.5% more than their non-AI counterparts, according to an analysis published in May by compensation data platform Levels.fyi.
The most common salary range for an engineering job listed on OpenAI’s website is $200,000 to $370,000, but for some more specialized roles, the salary range is $300,000 to $450,000, said Roger Lee, co-founder of a salary benchmarking firm.
According to Levels.fyi, salary ranges do not include bonuses or stock awards. It is said that this can bring an annual salary of 300 thousand dollars to approximately 800 thousand dollars in total.
WHY ARE THEY INDISPENSABLE? “ONE ENGINEER IN THE COMPANY IS WORTH THREE ENGINEERS OUTSIDE THE COMPANY”
There is a very small group of people who have experience and can be employed for emerging new technologies such as artificial intelligence.
On the other hand, given this dynamic, it takes a long time to learn a company’s code and technology stack. One AI engineer within the company is worth three AI engineers outside the company. It is said.
When it comes to recruitment from universities, it is stated that there is a big difference between understanding artificial intelligence models at a theoretical level and having the skills and experience to actually implement them, and OpenAI’s highly specialized software systems make its existing developers even more valuable.
Such situations apparently put OpenAI employees in an effective position to put direct pressure on the company’s board of directors.