Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has expressed concern about new researchers joining the AI firm mainly for money rather than its mission, according to an Axios report citing a source familiar with the matter. His position comes amid intense competition among companies including Meta, OpenAI, Google and Anthropic for a small pool of AI talent. Meta has been one of the biggest players in the AI talent race, bringing Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang into its AI operation following a $14.3 billion investment deal that gave Meta a 49% stake in Scale AI. The company hired its AI chief Alexandr Wang as part of a $15 billion deal last year. Meta has since spent heavily to attract leading researchers to its superintelligence effort, though some high-profile recruits have subsequently left, including some who moved to OpenAI. Google researchers Noam Shazeer and John Jumper left for OpenAI and Anthropic, respectively, in June. Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, has also lost several co-founders; her co-founder Lilian Weng recently announced her departure, with The Information later reporting she was returning to OpenAI. High salaries and equity are only part of the reason researchers are moving; they also consider computing power available, influence over products and research, and freedom to pursue preferred technical ideas. An executive technology recruiter told Axios the movement is partly driven by money and "some ego about changing th."