Written by Martin Coulter
LONDON (Reuters) – An influx of artificial intelligence (AI) startups is intensifying competition for tech talent in Europe, with companies like Google DeepMind either paying big bucks or hiring the region’s top talent. We are being forced to choose between losing human resources.
The overwhelming success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT has galvanized investors who are pouring money into promising AI startups, eager to unveil the next success overnight.
Riding the wave of investment, a string of foreign AI companies opened offices in Europe last year, including Canada’s Cohere, US-based Anthropic and OpenAI, adding to tech companies already looking to attract and retain talent in the region. pressure has increased further.
Founded in 2010 and acquired by Google in 2014, London-based DeepMind made a name for itself by applying AI to everything from board games to structural biology.
Now, the company faces a slew of well-funded rivals pushing into its territory, while more employees are leaving to start their own businesses.
Recent high-profile departures include co-founders Mustafa SuleimanHe left to found California-based Inflection AI with LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman and research scientist Arthur Mensch, who is now CEO of Mistral AI. Both companies have been valued at billions of dollars in their short time in existence.
DeepMind earlier this year gave its employees access to millions of dollars worth of restricted stock in an effort to discourage them from joining other companies or starting their own businesses, according to people familiar with the matter. It is said that he gave it to a senior researcher in the department.
“It’s definitely a competitive space,” a DeepMind spokesperson told Reuters, adding that the company “continues to do well in attracting and developing talent.”
fill the gap
Executive search firm Avery Fairbank says salaries for executives at UK AI companies have increased “sharply” over the past year.
Charlie Fairbank, managing director of the company, said, “With the entry of foreign AI giants such as Anthropic and Kohia into the London market, competition for AI talent will become even more intense.”
He said salaries for executives with a base salary of around £350,000 were rising between £50,000 and £100,000.
Cohere, which designs in-house chatbots and other tools for customers, hired Phil Blunsom as principal scientist in 2022, after seven years as principal scientist at DeepMind.
Sebastian Ruder also joined Cohere from DeepMind in January.
“It’s rare to find a company that has so many of the biggest minds in the industry building a large business from the ground up,” he told Reuters. “When those opportunities come, you grab them.”
Ruder declined to comment when asked about his salary.
Ekaterina Almask, general partner at venture capital firm OpenOcean, said DeepMind is no longer “a distant leader in this space.”
“These companies are all competing for the same talent, but the lack of AI skills makes the landscape increasingly more like a pond than an ocean.”
Suleiman recently started hiring technical staff for London-based Inflection AI, and Mensch’s Mistral has quickly become one of the continent’s hottest startups, raising $415 million in venture funding in December. was procured.
Mistral declined to comment, and Inflexion did not respond to requests for comment.
More influence
OpenAI opened its first international office in London last year, followed shortly by a second office in Dublin, but “this is just the first step,” said Diane Yun, the company’s vice president of people. The company plans to continue expanding to other countries in the future.
Kohia opened a UK office last year and CEO Aidan Gomez, who currently splits his time between his hometown of Toronto and London, told Reuters the company plans to double its headcount to 50 people. That’s what he said.
“We go where the talent is, and there’s a lot of it in London and all over Europe,” Gomez said.
The war for talent means that workers are increasingly in a position to make demands on their future employers.
London-based AI audio company Eleven Labs is offering new employees stock options, high salaries and fully remote working, but most of the advertised roles require employees to be based in Europe. stipulates.
The company, which recently raised $80 million in funding from venture capital firms including a16z and Sequoia, told Reuters it will soon double its total workforce to 100 people.
Paris-based startup Bioptimus, also founded by former DeepMind staff, raised $35 million in February.
Thomas Clausel, an early investor in the company, said startups are looking to recruit talent from Big Tech like Google by giving them more influence over the direction of the company.
“Google is one of the best companies in its field and produces the best talent,” he said. “At a small startup, you have a unique opportunity to stay true to the work you’re passionate about and be involved in the company’s success.”
(Reporting by Martin Coulter; Editing by Matt Scafham and Kirsten Donovan)
