Microsoft Hires Another Google Head in AI Talent Hiring War

Amar Subramanya, who previously was the vice president of engineering for Google’s Gemini chatbot, has made the switch to Microsoft, as announced in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday. 

“The culture here is refreshingly low ego yet bursting with ambition,” he wrote, confirming his appointment as corporate vice-president of AI.

Joining Subramanya are several other former DeepMind employees, such as engineering lead Sonal Gupta, software engineer Adam Sadovsky, and product manager Tim Frank, as reported by the Financial Times, citing sources familiar with Microsoft's hiring efforts. Over the past six months, the Seattle-based company has successfully recruited at least 20 people from Google DeepMind's research division, according to the report.

The recruitment spree has underscored a competitive talent acquisition battle among Silicon Valley's tech giants as they strive for an advantage in the emerging technology market.

This aggressive recruiting push from Microsoft coincides with a general trend spurred by tech companies to lure top AI researchers and engineers from their rivals.

This has led to a sharp rise in salaries.

 OpenAI's chief, Sam Altman, publicly criticised Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg for promoting “mercenary” practices by offering his developers enticing sign-on bonuses of up to $100 million.

The competition for talent between Microsoft and Google is particularly intense, especially since DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman now leads Microsoft’s consumer AI strategy, putting him in direct competition with his former partner, Google DeepMind CEO and co-founder Demis Hassabis. 

Subramanya and his DeepMind colleague Mat Velloso departed from Google last month, resulting in a reorganisation of the company’s AI division as it strives to stay competitive with rising startups like OpenAI and Anthropic, which are gaining traction. 

Last week, Meta also hired two AI researchers from Apple for its Superintelligence Labs team.