Perplexity AI CEO Shares How Google Retained An Employee He Wanted To Hire

Aravind Srinivas, the CEO of search engine Perplexity AI, recently shared an interesting incident that sheds light on how big tech companies are ready to shell a great amount of money to retain talent. During a conversation with Big Technology Podcast host Alex Kantrowitz, Mr Srinivas spoke about how Google tried to retain an employee his company was trying to hire. He revealed that the tech giant not only matched the candidate's salary but "quadrupled" it - much to his surprise. 

Mr Kantrowitz shared the video of the conversation on X (formerly Twitter). "'The moment he told them he's going to join us, they quadrupled his offer' - Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas on recruiting from Google (k, here's the video)," he wrote while sharing the clip. 

Watch the video below: 

"The moment he told them he's going to join us, they quadrupled his offer" - Perplexity CEO @AravSrinivas on recruiting from Google (k, here's the video) pic.twitter.com/HRhrLNPrHJ

— Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) February 16, 2024

In the podcast, Mr Srinivas said, "There was one amazing candidate that I tried to recruit from Google. This candidate used to work in the... I mean he still works there... like in the Google search team, it's not with the AI people. And, the moment he told them that he is gonna join us, they quadrupled his offer," he said in the podcast. "I have never seen anything like that before," he added. 

Further, during the conversation, Mr Srinivas was also asked if knew why tech companies are laying off so many people. To this he said, "Honestly, I dont know who they are letting go of. Is it based on performance or something else, I don't have a clear sense".

"One thing I was told is that they let go of people who have very high compensation but don't produce that much. So in Google, you can be on vacation and nobody cares, because the company is really not affected by that. But they began caring recently, at least for the people they were paying a lot," he added. 

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Mr Kantrowitz shared the clip on Friday and since then it has amassed more than 388,000 views. In the comments section, several social media media users sided with Google. While one user wrote, "This is an example when a company knows what it's core competency is and fights tooth and nail to keep that competency," another added, "Doesn't sound desperate on Alphabets part. Seems real sustainable". 

"Google is not allowing it anymore. No more bullies. No more Mr nice guy. They were like, we were the main contributors to AI research and you startups are coming for our talents. let's match offers now!" commented a third.