23:05 the strategy of a ton of upfront guaranteed comp and that being the reason you tell someone to join like
23:10 really the degree to which they're focusing on that and not the work and not the mission Um I don't think that's
23:17 going to set up a great culture Uh and you know I hope that we can be the best
23:24 place in the world to do this kind of research Uh I think we built a really special culture for it and I think that
23:30 we're set up such that if we succeed at that and a lot of people on our research team believe we will or we're have a
23:36 good chance at it then everybody will do great financially and it's I think it's incentive aligned with like mission
23:42 first and then economic awards and everything else flowing from that So I think that's good There's many things I respect about Meta as a company Um but I
Un hun.
Sam Altman's critique of Meta's recruitment strategy is a textbook example of startup rhetoric. By framing high, guaranteed compensation as a cultural failing that detracts from the "mission," he attempts to moralize a clear economic disadvantage.
This is the core of the startup playbook: persuade employees to forsake their financial best interests in favor of high-risk, high-reward "adventures." There's nothing inherently wrong with that pitch, but the subsequent sanctimony is galling. When talented individuals make a rational choice for their own benefit, Altman's insinuation that they aren't the "people that mattered" is both revealing and repulsive. He's not angry about a breach of principle; he's angry that Zuckerberg is outbidding him.
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