In this photo illustration, the OpenAI logo is displayed on a mobile phone screen with a photo of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.
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The pace of artificial intelligence innovation is raising the stakes for companies like OpenAI to snatch up top talent, according to new recruiting head Joaquin Quiñonero Candela.
“Recruiting has never been more important,” Candela wrote in a LinkedIn post on Monday, announcing his new role. “We’re under unprecedented pressure to grow. If we were a rocket (wait, we’re one), we’d be at MaxQ, maximum dynamic pressure. We’re also in uncharted waters.”
Candela, who previously served as head of preparedness, said firms are relying on leaders such as OpenAI as they develop new ways to recruit talent while improving productivity.
OpenAI and other AI model creators are in a heated battle against industry rivals to recruit engineers and developers to help implement their AI visions. Last week, Meta Platforms announced a more than $14 billion investment in startup Scale AI that includes CEO Alexandr Wang joining the social media company. Other key AI competitors include Anthropic and Alphabet.
OpenAI has already hired a number of big names.
Last month, the $300 billion startup named Instacart’s CEO Fidji Simo as its head of applications. At the time, CEO Sam Altman said in a post that Simo would “focus on enabling our ‘traditional’ company functions to scale as we enter a next phase of growth.” In May, OpenAI also bought iPhone designer Jony Ive’s AI devices hardware startup for $6.4 billion. A year ago, OpenAI announced the hiring of Sarah Friar, former CEO of Nextdoor and finance chief at Square, as its CFO.
Industry competitors including Google have incorporated new roles in recent months to beef up their AI offering. In March, Amazon‘s cloud business formed a new group focused on building software for AI agents.
Candela joined OpenAI last year as head of preparedness for building AI systems. He holds a PhD in machine learning and has spent decades focused on AI-related disciplines. He previously worked at Facebook for over nine years, leading the company’s responsible AI efforts and its machine learning group.
The new recruiting chief said he aims to “help build a staggeringly capable, mission-aligned workforce, deeply connected to our values and to AGI.” He added that company has grown almost tenfold over the last two and a half years.
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