In the high-stakes arms race between Meta and OpenAI for AI dominance, the weapon of choice has evolved. First, it was unlimited compute, then, $100m signing bonuses. Now, the battle has entered a new, bizarerely intimate phase: soup wars.

Mark Chen, the Chief Research Officer at OpenAI, said in a podcast with tech podcaster Ashlee Vance that the recruitment war has shifted. According to Chen, Meta has aggressively pursued half of his direct reports—backed by a $10 billion war chest for talent—but CEO Mark Zuckerberg has added a personal touch to the poaching attempts.

Zuckerberg, Chen said, has personally “hand-cooked” and “hand-delivered” soup to researchers he wanted to recruit away from OpenAI. And it wasn’t a joke, the executive insisted.

“It was shocking to me at the time,” Chen a

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