AI startup CEO who has hired several Meta engineers says: Reason AI researchers are leaving Meta is, as founder Mark Zuckerberg said, "Biggest risk is not taking ..."

Shawn Shen

, co-founder and CEO of the AI startup Memories.ai, has stated that some researchers are leaving Facebook-parent Meta due to frequent company reorganisations and a desire to take on bigger risks. Shen, who left Meta himself last year, notes that constant changes in managers and goals can be frustrating for researchers, leading them to seek opportunities at other companies and startups. Shen's startup, which builds AI to understand visual data, recently announced a plan to offer up to $2 million compensation packages to researchers from top tech companies.

Memories.ai

has already hired Chi-Hao Wu, a former Meta research scientist, as its chief AI officer. Shen also referenced a statement from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg who earlier said that the “the biggest risk is not taking any risks.”

What startup CEO Shen said about AI researchers leaving Meta

In an interview with Business Insider, Shen said: “Meta is constantly doing reorganizations. Your manager and your goals can change every few months. For some researchers, it can be really frustrating and feel like a waste of time. So yes, I think that's a driver for people to leave Meta and join other companies, especially startups.

There's other reasons people might leave. I think the biggest one is what Mark (Zuckerberg) has said: ‘In an age that's evolving so fast, the biggest risk is not taking any risks. So why not do that and potentially change the world as part of a trillion-dollar company?’We have already hired Eddy Wu, our Chief AI Officer who was my manager's manager at Meta. He's making a similar amount to what we're offering the new people. He was on their generative AI team, which is now Meta Superintelligence Labs. And we are already talking to a few other people from MSL and some others from Google DeepMind.”

What Shen said about hiring Meta AI researchers for his startup

Shen noted that he’s offering AI researchers who are leaving Meta pay packages of $2 million to work with his startup. He said: “It's because of the talent war that was started by Mark Zuckerberg. I used to work at Meta, and I speak with my former colleagues often about this. When I heard about their compensation packages, I was shocked — it's really in the tens of millions range. But it shows that in this age, AI researchers who make the best models and stand at the frontier of technology are really worth this amount of money. We're building an AI model that can see and remember just like humans. The things that we are working on are very niche. So we are looking for people who are really, really good at the whole field of understanding video data.”He even explained that his company is prioritising hires who are willing to take more equity than cash, allowing it to preserve its financial runway. These recruits will be treated as founding members rather than employees, with compensation split between cash and equity depending on the individual, Shen added.Over the next six months, the AI startup is planning to add three to five people, followed by another five to ten within a year, alongside efforts to raise additional funding. Shen believes that investing heavily in talent will strengthen, not hinder, future fundraising.