OpenAI Announces Rare Week-Long Shutdown Amid Talent Poaching Pressure from Meta

In a rare move that underscores both internal exhaustion and external competitive pressure, OpenAI has announced a full company shutdown for one week to allow its employees to rest and recharge. The break, which excludes top executives, follows months of reportedly intense 80-hour workweeks as the company races toward its goal of achieving Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

The development was first reported by Wired, citing internal sources familiar with the decision. While the move is framed as a wellness initiative, it comes amid growing concern within OpenAI about aggressive talent poaching by Meta, which is reportedly offering signing bonuses exceeding $100 million to lure key researchers.

Meta’s Strategic Recruitment Blitz

Meta, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, has launched a full-scale effort to expand its AI superintelligence lab, with recent hires including top researchers from OpenAI. Notably, Meta has successfully recruited Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, Xiaohua Zhai, and Trapit Bansal, all prominent contributors to OpenAI’s core reasoning and model design capabilities. Bansal, in particular, played a pivotal role in the development of OpenAI’s advanced o1 model, a foundation for its next-generation AI systems.

According to sources, Meta’s recruitment campaign has targeted exhausted OpenAI researchers with offers that are difficult to ignore. "Meta knows we're taking this week to recharge and will take advantage of it to try and pressure you to make decisions fast and in isolation," wrote Mark Chen, OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer, in an internal Slack message that has now surfaced publicly.

The memo signals growing anxiety within OpenAI’s leadership that the rest period could become an opportunity for competitors to poach more staff, especially those who may feel overworked or under-compensated.

80-Hour Workweeks Fuel Burnout Concerns

Insiders at OpenAI have described the work environment in recent months as “intensely demanding,” with many engineers and researchers logging 80 hours a week as the company prioritizes rapid iteration and innovation. The workload has become so consuming that leadership has opted for a full-scale operational pause—something rarely seen in Silicon Valley’s hypercompetitive startup culture.

“Employees have earned a break. This isn’t about stepping away from the mission—it’s about coming back stronger,” said one senior OpenAI executive, speaking on condition of anonymity. Sources say the leadership team, including CEO Sam Altman, will continue working during the break, focusing on long-term strategy and retention measures.

Compensation Overhaul Underway

In response to Meta’s aggressive offers and recent defections, OpenAI is now rethinking its compensation structure. Chief Research Officer Mark Chen confirmed that the company is “recalibrating comp” and exploring creative ways to reward and retain top talent beyond traditional salary and bonus packages.

Although Sam Altman has acknowledged Meta’s offers, including the reported $100 million sign-on bonuses, he downplayed their influence. “None of our best people have decided to take them up on that,” Altman recently said, noting that OpenAI’s core team remains intact and motivated by its mission rather than money.

Some former employees, however, have disputed the specific size of Meta’s offers, dismissing them as “fake news.” Nonetheless, industry observers agree that high-stakes bidding wars for AI talent are becoming increasingly common, especially as companies position themselves for dominance in AGI development.

From Product Launches to AGI Focus
 

OpenAI is also reorienting its internal priorities. While the company has dazzled the public with frequent releases of new models and tools—such as the GPT-4 series, Sora for video generation, and the O-series for multimodal tasks—it is now scaling back on constant product launches in favor of a singular focus on AGI.

“OpenAI was never about short-term wins,” a source close to leadership noted. “This recalibration is about focusing energy on building systems that fundamentally change how intelligence works at scale.”

This shift aligns with earlier statements by Altman and other executives that OpenAI’s ultimate mission is to ensure AGI benefits all of humanity. However, critics have raised concerns that the internal culture, marked by relentless schedules and limited rest, could jeopardize the company’s ability to innovate sustainably.

The Bigger Picture: AI’s Talent Wars
 

The situation reflects a broader trend in the AI industry—talent wars between major tech players. As the race to AGI accelerates, researchers with experience in large language models (LLMs), reinforcement learning, and data architecture are in higher demand than ever. Companies like Meta, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, and Microsoft are not only competing on technological frontiers but also on the battlefield of human capital.

For OpenAI, this moment represents both a challenge and a turning point. With its institutional culture under scrutiny and its compensation model being overhauled, the organization is attempting to strike a balance between speed, sustainability, and mission integrity.

Conclusion

As OpenAI prepares for a rare pause in its operations, the company finds itself at a crossroads. On one hand, it has become a global leader in AI innovation. On the other, it now faces the real-world consequences of high-intensity work culture and growing external pressures from aggressive competitors like Meta.

Whether this reset week results in renewed energy or more resignations remains to be seen. What’s clear, however, is that the battle for AI supremacy will not just be won with code—but with people.