Senior executives are walking out the door at some of the biggest names in enterprise software, and heading straight to AI companies that are already driving down the stock prices of their former employers. The double whammy of collapsing valuations and draining leadership has left the sector in a position few could have predicted just a year ago.
OpenAI and Anthropic recently hired top talent from Salesforce, Snowflake, and Datadog, offering great salary packages and the opportunity to transition their existing business relationships into a new role. Salesforce and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.
Denise Dresser was one of the most notable appointees. He was the CEO of Slack under Sales force He has since taken on the role of Chief Revenue Officer at OpenAI. Jennifer Maglessi, a Salesforce veteran, recently announced on LinkedIn that she will be joining OpenAI as Head of Marketing.
“What makes this opportunity especially meaningful is my true belief in the product. I have seen how useful this technology can be in both work and life,” books. Anthropic also pulled talent from Salesforce, according to a person with knowledge of the employees.
Two separate sources told CNBC that OpenAI is also quietly hiring future deployment engineers Palantira role considered among the most specialized in the industry, involves hands-on work helping customers overhaul their processes using software tools.
The new talent war is not about researchers anymore
The talent rush was all about the scientists. Laboratories competed for researchers with salaries worth millions of dollars and signing bonuses worth tens of millions. That battle did not end, but a new battle opened.
As of January, up to 40% off OpenAI works They are created by enterprise customers. It will reach 50% by the end of the year, according to Sarah Friar, the company’s chief financial officer.
In November, OpenAI said it had more than 1 million commercial customers around the world. This shows that OpenAI isn’t just looking for people who can build AI, as the company already knows that better than most. But it still takes people who can attract the biggest companies in the world and who already have a foot in the door.
For companies that lose these executives, the timing couldn’t be worse. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software ETF, which tracks the software sector, is down nearly 20% this year. Fear of artificial intelligence is causing investors to divest from traditional software names.
Shares fell as OpenAI moved to replace, not just compete
It’s not just stock prices that are cause for concern. It’s the way OpenAI has taken steps that show it doesn’t want to work in the software industry; It is simply intended to replace it.
In February, the company launched Frontier, a system designed to create and operate autonomous agents that can work across software, manipulate data, and perform difficult work tasks without the need for a human supervisor. Another such name is an agent called operator, which handles office work through various applications.
Frontier Alliances partnerships with McKinsey, BCG and Accenture announced, on practices of taking over entire departments at major companies using AI agents
The markets witnessed a sharp decline. ServiceNow stock was down more than 20% during the year to that point, with another 4.39% drop on February 23 alone. Palantir stock is down nearly 25% since January. CrowdStrike stock fell 9.37% on the same day.
ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott went so far as to use his own money to buy back stock. Palantir and CrowdStrike said AI customers cannot survive without the infrastructure and governance their companies provide.
Some employees at software companies can’t wait to find out who’s right. This month, Oracle began laying off thousands of workers Metamorphic resources Towards cloud computing AI. Meta and Microsoft have also cut staff in recent weeks.
