In today’s fiercely competitive AI job market, simply offering a substantial salary hike may not be enough to attract top-tier talent. Recognizing this shift, Microsoft’s AI chief, Mustafa Suleyma,n has taken a more strategic approach. Rather than solely relying on financial incentives, he has been personally reaching out to engineers at Google DeepMind — his former workplace — not just with attractive pay packages but also with a compelling vision of a new kind of work culture.
Silicon Valley is currently engulfed in an intense race for AI expertise, where tech giants like Meta are known for luring talent with multimillion-dollar deals, some reaching as high as $200 million. However, Microsoft has opted for a different route. The company’s recruitment strategy centers around presenting its AI division as a dynamic, agile, startup-like environment that contrasts sharply with the more bureaucratic settings found at larger, more established firms like Google.
Mustafa Suleyman, having co-founded DeepMind and now leading Microsoft’s AI efforts, is actively building a new AI lab and tapping into his former network to assemble a top-tier team. Reports indicate that over the past several months, Microsoft has successfully onboarded more than two dozen former Google employees — most of them from DeepMind. These hires include notable figures such as Adam Sadovsky, a former distinguished engineer, and Amar Subramanya, who previously served as Google’s Vice President of Engineering.
Suleyman’s pitch to prospective hires revolves around Microsoft AI’s fast-moving, innovation-driven culture that operates without the bureaucratic constraints of large corporations. His message is clear: at Microsoft’s AI lab, engineers can enjoy a greater degree of autonomy, experiment more freely, and experience the thrill of building something new from the ground up. According to Subramanya, who recently shared his thoughts on LinkedIn, the team’s environment is marked by low ego, high ambition, and a collaborative spirit reminiscent of an early-stage startup — all focused on developing powerful AI models and products like Microsoft Copilot.
This team is based in Mountain View, California, a location that underscores its independence from Microsoft’s corporate headquarters in Redmond, Washington. It functions almost like a separate startup under Microsoft’s umbrella, with CEO Satya Nadella reportedly giving Suleyman broad authority and a significant budget to create an AI division capable of going head-to-head with leading competitors like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google itself.
While Microsoft’s compensation offers may not rival the most extreme packages at Meta, they are still highly competitive — especially for senior roles — and significantly higher than what DeepMind usually provides. This combination of appealing salaries, a compelling mission, and a startup-like work atmosphere appears to be drawing some of the brightest minds in the field.
Interestingly, the current talent dynamics are a reversal of the early 2000s, when Google was the up-and-coming disruptor poaching engineers from Microsoft with promises of innovation and rapid growth. Today, with the AI revolution in full swing, it’s Microsoft that’s embracing the upstart mentality — and attracting former Googlers in the process. Even former Google HR executive Laszlo Bock has remarked that the company now feels more like a finance-driven organization than one led by engineers, highlighting the cultural shift that may be influencing these high-profile departures.
