Inside the A.I. Talent Wars

The race to dominate artificial intelligence has become a scramble for talent, with tech companies offering pay packages of $250 million and poaching their competitors’ best employees.


Mike Isaac, who covers the tech sector for The Times, explains why all the hype is raising fears that A.I. could become the next big bubble.


Guest: Mike Isaac (https://www.nytimes.com/by/mike-isaac) , a New York Times reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering tech companies and Silicon Valley.


Background reading: 

• To navigate the recruitment frenzy (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/te...) , many A.I. researchers have turned to unofficial agents to strategize.
• Life for workers at Silicon Valley’s biggest tech companies has changed as the behemoth firms have aged into large bureaucracies (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/te...) .

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily (http://nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-t...) . Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 


Photo: Photo Illustration by Ihor Lukianenko, via Getty Images






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