Hire top ai talent if you are not a technical giant

Welcome to the HBR Executive Agenda for 4 September 2025.

In this number:

• Hire top ai talent if you are not a technical giant
• Power Moves

AI talent is hard to find and even more difficult to pay. The New York Times recently reported That meta offered a 24-year-old AI researcher $ 250 million in four years to pry him from a startup.

Although such Megadeals are rare, starting salaries for AI talent of $ 500,000 and up are not. That is too pricey for many companies that have to build their AI expertise just as urgently as the technical giants.

So how can “normal” companies compete for AI talent in this area? I asked several experts to weigh.

Richard singerCEO and co-founder of the Startup Radical Human Enterprises believes that you must give a deep sense of goal.

I need AI -Seniurs and Data Scientists and I don’t have $ 100 million to throw around. But what I think is that these guys buy a goal.

You have to find a way to talk to their hearts. There were five people I wanted to hire for my AI lab. I had meetings with each hour and I explained our vision to cherish the human potential in the AI ​​era. All five said yes, although they acknowledged that they could earn more money elsewhere.

I can’t offer them millions of dollars. But I can offer enough to meet their needs, and if we succeed, I can share the success through stock options. And for now I can offer a goal. And that is attractive for many coders, who want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

Ruth EbelingA BCG director who specializes in human strategy and talent believes that flexible work policy can help to level the playing field.

In a proposal for employee value, there are the two big questions: why come and why stay? For data and AI talent there are various factors that are much important in both areas.

The number one of this group is the possibility to work at a distance and flexibly. Engineers often do deep work, and they cannot always manage that in an open office with many interruptions and noise. It is not that they demand to work from home every day, but they want the possibility to bend.

Many of these experts also want jobs that have a positive influence on society and humanity. Many want to become members of a company that, for example, takes care of responsible AI.

And you must provide these employees interesting content. You have to give them fun and interesting work. You can keep them when you constantly give them new problems to solve and when you offer mobility. That means not just a step higher, but an opportunity to grow in shape and compensation and to build up a depth of expertise.

Nathan MarstonChief Digital and Technology Officer at Egon Zehnder, thinks that companies should embrace the chance of rapid turnover and use them to their advantage.

Companies must acknowledge that they may only be able to keep this talent for a year or two or three before they lose the big technology companies.

But they should embrace that. Winning can mean that you enter the talent you need for a fixed period. You essentially say to them: I can’t pay “You have won the lottery salaries” because I don’t have that kind of money. But if you come great for me and come for me, I can enlarge your chances to get there.

Get people when they are young and put them through training programs. After two or three years they become super valuable, which means that you probably can’t afford to keep them. So you have to build your recruitment strategy around that constant electricity.

I also think that we underestimate the power of teams as a retention mechanism. This talent basis has choices, and sometimes they will want to stay with people who like and respect them. That means that employers should try hard to build teams based on complementary skills. If you form something that feels special, you might be able to keep a team together for a longer period.

Azeem AzharEntrepreneur and founder of Exponential View, thinks that the key is to make the work interesting and meaningful.

While giants such as Amazon exercise enormous resources, other companies can compete by offering unique benefits that appeal to top -ai professionals looking for a meaningful impact.

This includes access to own data sets in niche domains – think of medical imaging, industrial processes or material science. This enables talent to develop robust, specialized AI models that stimulate innovation in practice.

Smaller companies also offer a healthier working culture, away from the public spotlights, who can attract the appreciation of balance and substance over a rocket ship.

But to achieve this, companies must eliminate obstacles and change their processes to fulfill the promise of AI.

Raj VermaCEO of Single Store, a startup of the data technology, says that the key to attracting AI talent gives them the chance to innovate.

Startups cannot bother Amazon or Google for talent – and we don’t try it. The strategy of Big Tech is simple: hire the best people from Insane Economics that can only afford trillion dollar companies.

Innovation is not only important to us; It is survival. Innovation gives people a clear line of sight of their work to meaningful impact. That kind of ownership and fulfillment creates opportunities that money cannot buy, and it is what holds people – even when there are major financial incentives. And the only way we innovate is with the right people.

Our trainees do not work on side projects; They solve real problems from the first day. Many stay because they see how fast they can grow in an environment where every contribution matters.

We once hired a trainee who solved a problem in two weeks that had stabbed us for a year. He has made great contributions for years before he left for Big Tech – proof of both the challenges we are confronted with and the capacity of small organizations to cultivate great talent.

It is not easy to compete for AI talent without deep pockets, but it is not hopeless. You have to understand what really motivates this group and create opportunities for these experts to do really interesting work. You may not be able to keep them forever, but you can drive on their expertise long enough to create satisfying work that can stimulate innovation at your company.

We know that you have little time, so when we return from the summer season, we emphasize some of our favorite usable insights from HBR Executive so far.

Do not combine the uncertainty with volatility.

Although they often exist side by side, treating them as the same lead to miserable decisions, such as hesitation when you have to experiment or respond exaggerated when you have to build up resilience.

(By: “Overcoming the traps that prevent growth in uncertain times))

Think of skills, no jobs.

In an AI world, roles will constantly shift as tasks are automated and have new strategic priority. Knowing what skills you have in your organization – and what skills you need – allows you to adjust quickly, to put together project teams immediately.

(By: “Assessing your talent needs in the AI ​​era))

When you present a new strategy on the board, you share the solutions that you have rejected.

Being transparent about the logic behind your final recommendation, builds confidence and trust that you have chosen the right direction. But don’t go too deep in the details or you risk derailing the conversation.

(By: “Present a new strategy for the board and win their buy-in))