August 2025

While Meta poaches talent from Apple, OpenAI and Google, AI startup Anthropic is refusing to play the game by matching competing offers.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei explained his reasoning on an episode of the “Big Technology Podcast,” released earlier this week. Amodei said that he recently sent a Slack message to all Anthropic staff informing them that the company was not willing to “compromise our compensation principles” or its “principles of fairness” when individual employees receive outside offers.

He said that Meta’s efforts to poach staff were a “unifying moment” for the company, citing his decision not to match offers due to potential unfairness for other staff members.

Related: AI Is Dramatically Decreasing Entry-Level Hiring at Big Tech Companies, According to a New Analysis

Amodei also acknowledged on the podcast that fewer Anthropic employees had been captured by Meta’s compensation offers when compared to other companies, though “not for lack of trying.” Some Anthropic staff “wouldn’t even talk” to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to Amodei.

Meta is reportedly offering more than $200 million in compensation to one AI researcher on the superintelligence team who worked at Apple. The tech giant did manage to poach Anthropic software engineer Joel Pobar, as of a June 30 memo.

“If Mark Zuckerberg throws a dart at a dartboard and it hits your name, that doesn’t mean that you should be paid 10 times more than the guy next to you who’s just as skilled, just as talented,” Amodei said on the podcast.

^{Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei. Photo by Halil Sagirkaya/Anadolu via Getty Images}

Anthropic’s compensation is tied to a level-based system. Amodei explained on the podcast that when Anthropic staff join the company, they are classified into one of many different levels, which corresponds to their compensation.

“We don’t negotiate that level because we think it’s unfair,” Amodei said. “We want to have a systematic way.”

Related: How Much Does It Cost to Develop and Train AI? Here’s the Current Price, According to Anthropic’s CEO.

Amodei said that Anthropic’s mission of safely creating reliable, cutting-edge AI systems inspired many employees to stay, and asserted that Zuckerberg was “trying to buy something that can’t be bought,” which is alignment with a company’s mission.

Zuckerberg, meanwhile, recently outlined his mission with his superintelligence team, a group working on creating AI that surpasses human intelligence. In a blog post on Meta’s website, published on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said that Meta’s goal was to bring superintelligence to every individual and allow people to reap the creative, economic and personal benefits of the technology.

He contrasted the effort with the intentions of “others in the industry” who want to use AI to automate the workforce first before giving it to individuals. Meta’s mission is to empower individuals with AI, Zuckerberg wrote.

Related: Reddit Sues $61.5 Billion AI Startup Anthropic for Allegedly Using the Site for Training Data

Since its start in 2021, Anthropic has raised close to $20 billion from companies like Google and Amazon. According to a Bloomberg report from earlier this week, the startup is nearing a deal to raise funds at a $170 billion valuation.

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When I sat down with Scott Clawson, CEO of Culligan, there was no pomp, no buzzwords and certainly no ego. He’s not trying to sell you on anything. Culligan is a nearly 90-year-old water company based in suburban Chicago, and under Scott’s leadership, it’s grown from $400 million to over $3.3 billion in revenue, now serving more than 14 million households and two million businesses across 90 countries — and I had never heard of him! But Scott doesn’t come across like a typical “big company” CEO. He was grounded, thoughtful and deeply mission-driven.

We met at the United Center, where Culligan is the official hydration partner. It was fitting. Sports have played a big role in Scott’s life, and he credits much of his leadership style to lessons from his high school basketball team in small-town Indiana. There’s no star player mentality — just a group of people working together with clear roles and shared goals. That philosophy seems to underpin his entire approach to business: Build a strong team, stay focused on purpose, and lead with consistency over flash.

Related: 2 Tech CEOs Talk Cyber Threats, Space Flights and the Dark Side of AI — Here’s How They’re Preparing for the Future

Culligan’s purpose is straightforward: to provide healthy, safe, sustainable water to people around the world. It’s a mission that matters more than most people realize. More than two billion people lack access to safe drinking water. In the U.S., issues around outdated infrastructure and chemical contamination in regions like Michigan, Texas and parts of the Midwest are far more prevalent than many think. Scott and his team are trying to fix that — not just through better filtration, but by reducing reliance on single-use plastics and expanding access in underserved regions like Latin America and Southeast Asia.

What stood out most to me wasn’t just the mission, though. It was Scott’s clarity of thought and genuine sense of responsibility. He’s not trying to be a social media personality. He’s not chasing headlines. When you lead a company for 10+ years with that type of performance, he easily could be. But he’s building something with long-term impact, and that tone seems to permeate Culligan’s culture. It’s rare to hear a CEO say he wakes up every day and loves going to work — not because it’s easy, but because it’s meaningful.

Scott also made it clear that leadership doesn’t have to be short-sighted. He advocates for more business leaders to prioritize sustainability, long-term value and the human element of enterprise. In a time when CEO turnover is at an all-time high and employee disengagement continues to rise, leaders like Scott serve as a reminder that humility, consistency and purpose still win over the long haul.

Related: ‘The Most Important Traits Are Confidence and Humility’: Leadership Lessons From an Army Ranger Turned CEO

This is why I do The CEO Series. Not to promote companies or CEOs. Not to grill executives on quarterly performance. But to better understand the people behind the titles — and to highlight leadership that isn’t driven by ego or profit alone. Scott Clawson is one of those leaders, and I’m glad we got to tell a little bit of his story. Hope you enjoyed the video.

Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world, with a market capitalization of $3.12 trillion at the time of writing — and now new data reveals how much Apple pays its workers, from AI machine learning researchers to data scientists.

According to new federal filings, obtained by Business Insider, Apple is paying software developers as much as $264,200, while software engineer managers make as much as $378,700. The filings, which featured several software engineering roles, reveal that Apple pays engineers focused on data up to $329,600 while engineers focused on applications earn more, up to $378,700. Human interface designers, meanwhile, can make substantially more, up to $468,500.

Related: Here’s How Much Money Amazon Employees — From Software Engineers to Product Managers — Make in a Year

Other big tech companies compensate their employees similarly for comparable roles. For example, Meta pays $120,000 to $480,000, Google pays $109,180 to $340,000, and Microsoft pays $82,971 to $284,000 for software engineering talent.

When it comes to AI researchers, Apple pays the role up to $312,000 in base salary — a far cry from Meta, which has recently awarded over $200 million in compensation for AI talent amid the ongoing AI talent wars. Meta has poached four AI researchers from Apple as of Monday, per Bloomberg.

The Apple data arrives from documents that the company filed with the U.S. Department of Labor in the second quarter of the year while hiring foreign workers. The data only applies to foreign hires and discloses base salary, not including stock options, signing bonuses, or other compensation.

Related: Psychologist Adam Grant Says Paying Employees ‘Extremely Generously’ Can Actually Benefit Employers, Too. Here’s Why.

Other roles are paid as follows, according to the filings:

• Data Scientist: $105,550 to $322,400
• Electronics Engineer: $108,160 to $264,200
• Hardware Developers: $124,942 to $293,800
• Machine Learning Engineer: $143,100 to $312,000
• Professional Services Consultant: $100,200 to $258,700
• Tools and Automation Engineer: $105,602 to $293,800

While these roles can pay well into the six figures, there’s one role at Apple that makes the most money of all: CEO.

According to Apple’s annual proxy statement, filed this year with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the tech giant’s CEO, Tim Cook, made $74.6 million in 2024, including base salary, bonuses, and stock options.

^{Apple CEO Tim Cook. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images}

Cook explained in a 2023 interview with singer Dua Lipa that Apple looks for traits like curiosity and creativity from new hires and recruits workers from “all walks of life.”

Related: Here’s How Much 8 CEOs Made in 2024, From JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon to Disney’s Bob Iger

“It’s an incredible feeling to work with people that bring out the best in you,” Cook stated in the interview.

Apple has 80,000 employees and claims to have created two million jobs across the country, including 1.53 million U.S. jobs due to the App Store ecosystem.

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Let’s start with the hard truth: most co-founders slow you down, most investors want control and a lot of people build companies just because it looks good on LinkedIn, not because they truly believe in their idea. That was never going to be me.

I chose to build my business solo, intentionally. No co-founder, no “advisors” whispering in my ear, no brainstorming sessions dragging on with endless opinions. I didn’t want validation — I wanted speed and clarity.

People often ask, “Isn’t it risky to go it alone?” And I get that. But what’s riskier is handing over your vision to someone else and hoping they protect it with the same fire you have. I had a clear idea of what I wanted to build: a face recognition AI product before the market even caught on, a delivery platform that could grow into a full ecosystem and a wallet that could quietly scale without the usual startup noise.

I wasn’t going to chase capital, wait for permission or explain my vision to people who didn’t get it yet. I wasn’t interested in startup therapy sessions. I wanted results, and I was ready to work for them.

Related: Solopreneurs Are Quietly Building 6 to 7 Figure Empires — Here’s How

The hidden cost of “help”

One of the biggest misconceptions about solo founders is that they have to do everything themselves — that being solo means being small and slow. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I didn’t build a team. I built systems that operated like a well-oiled team.

Every hour wasted costs double when you’re alone, in time and energy. I didn’t have the luxury to figure things out later or wait for others. Everything needed to be lean, fast and repeatable from day one.

For example, I stopped taking endless meetings. Instead, I use Notion to track my decisions, next steps and ideas. It’s like a virtual COO who never forgets. Zapier automates my workflows, connecting apps, notifications and documents without my constant input. Canva and ChatGPT handle design and content without the overhead of a creative team.

Stripe and Google Workspace take care of invoicing, legal paperwork and onboarding — without a single assistant. Calendly manages scheduling, filtering meetings to only what truly matters.

Everything that could be systemized, automated or eliminated was. The goal wasn’t to do every task, but to make sure every task got done without slowing me down. Being solo means being sharp and disciplined, not stretched thin.

Focus only on what moves the needle

The mental game of building alone is often underestimated. It’s not about grinding nonstop or wearing every hat yourself. It’s about ruthless prioritization and protecting your mental energy for decisions only you can make.

I don’t spend hours on technical builds. I delegate development to offshore teams who specialize in what I need and follow the architecture I define. Design is templated and systemized. Admin work is automated or simply cut out.

My job is to think clearly, focus on the strategic and avoid the noise. That means locking in my daily plan the night before, setting a clear delegation process and applying a simple rule: if something takes more than an hour, I either systemize it or hand it off.

The pressure doesn’t come from doing it alone. It comes from trying to be everywhere at once. My edge isn’t that I do everything — it’s that I know exactly what only I can do and make sure everything else moves without me.

Proof comes from action not hype

I didn’t wait for launch day or perfect pitches to validate my ideas. I built quietly in the background and tested where it truly counts — the market.

One early success was a hardware AI concept I developed out of personal passion, not investor pressure. I made a lightweight, plug-and-play face recognition demo, then shared it privately with a few key people who influence adoption and trends.

The result? One buyer signed immediately under an NDA, two more asked for pricing without a formal pitch and the feedback was practical and deep, not surface-level praise.

No press releases, no ad spend, no waiting lists. Just product, context and real customer signals. That was proof enough.

Why I’d still choose to build alone

That early deal wasn’t a one-off. After delivering the proof of concept, I fulfilled the entire solution — negotiating terms, securing deposits and managing production — all without partners or funding. I kept control over every decision and every dollar.

Many assume co-founders or VCs are necessary milestones. I proved they’re not. When you build with clarity, protect your IP and execute with discipline, you don’t need more voices in the room. You need more control.

Building alone gave me confidence, clarity and capital. It let me walk away from one project so I could double down on bigger ones. It’s not about isolation — it’s about focused leverage.

Related: 5 Things You Need to Stop Doing as a Solopreneur

Building a business alone isn’t about a lack of support. It’s about building on your terms. You don’t need to go viral or raise millions to succeed. You need to go all in — with focus, integrity and systems that work while you sleep.

If you’re debating the solo route, remember this: clarity beats consensus. Speed beats committee. Vision beats noise.

Build your way and build it strong.

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