The Neymar case: when talent becomes a multi-million asset
In 2017, something incredible and historic happened.
No, it wasn’t the inauguration of Donald Trump. Nor the election of Emmanuel Macron. It wasn’t the #MeToo movement or the arrest of Harvey Weinstein either.
It was something that, if you like soccer, you definitely remember: Neymar’s transfer from FC Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain for 222 million euros.
To this day, this is the most expensive transfer in football history. The only one that came close was Kylian Mbappé, also to PSG, for around 180 million.
It’s impressive to think about such high values. And for a long time, this kind of multimillion-dollar competition seemed exclusive to sports.
How much is AI talent worth?
Now, think with me:
How much would a “transfer” of a scientist be worth?
Or a bidding war between the world’s top universities for a single researcher?
It probably wouldn’t come close to that.
Even in the corporate world, as well-paid as CEOs are, their earnings are usually tied to performance, results, bonuses…
But recently, something changed.
With the rise of artificial intelligence, major tech companies began treating certain professionals — AI scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs — almost like soccer players.
People with extremely rare knowledge, being fought over with massive amounts of money.
Whoever pays more, wins.
And that’s exactly what we’re going to talk about today:
This new logic where professionals become “multimillion-dollar transfers,” Meta’s role in this movement… and, most importantly, what this reveals about the future of the job market.
Meta’s strategy in the race for superintelligence
Let’s focus for a moment on Meta Platforms — which you probably still know as Facebook — and its founder Mark Zuckerberg, who, by the way, is also a fan of jiu-jitsu and MMA… so we already have something in common.
The company has been spending heavily on artificial intelligence recently. It has made acquisitions, such as the agentic AI startup Manus, for around 2 billion dollars, as well as the AI agent social platform Moltbook.
More than buying companies, Meta has started “buying” something even more valuable: people.
Billion-dollar investments and the war for talent
A clear example of this was the 14.3 billion dollar investment in Scale AI, closely tied to its founder Alexandr Wang, who went on to lead Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs.
This lab has an ambitious goal: to pursue so-called “superintelligence” — a hypothetical AI system that would surpass human intelligence.
Now, interestingly… so far, the results are far from impressive.
The lab has already gone through multiple reorganizations in just a few months, being split into different specialized teams, and some talents left the project early on.
In addition, progress in models like LLaMA 4 has been heavily criticized when compared to competitors such as Gemini, from Google.
The new “transfer market” in tech
But Alexandr Wang was not the only one.
Since 2025, Meta Platforms has reportedly made aggressive offers to talent from OpenAI and Google DeepMind, with compensation packages exceeding 100 million dollars.
One of the most emblematic cases is Matt Deitke.
Born in 2001, he reportedly joined Meta’s superintelligence lab in August 2025 after accepting an offer of around 250 million dollars.
And here’s something curious: doing the math quickly, that’s roughly the same value as Neymar’s transfer.
In other words… it’s not just a coincidence.
It’s a signal.
The AI engineer has literally become the new soccer player.
Of course, other companies are also entering this race — such as xAI, which developed Grok and attracted names like Ior Babushkin.
But today, this movement has a very clear protagonist: Meta.
Meta’s contradiction: mass layoffs vs. million-dollar salaries
Now… pause for a second.
Isn’t this the same Meta that, according to Reuters citing internal sources, is planning to lay off around 20% of its workforce?
One in five employees. Globally.
So let me get this straight:
On one side, hundreds of millions for a few talents…
On the other, thousands of people being let go.
It seems like a huge contradiction, right?
But hold on — because when we look more closely… maybe it’s not exactly a contradiction.
Why Meta is laying off thousands
Meta is reportedly planning its largest round of layoffs since the 2022–2023 restructuring.
The company is considering cutting around 20% of its workforce.
Today, that represents nearly 79,000 people—meaning over 15,000 jobs.If confirmed, it would be the largest cut in the company’s history.
And proportionally, even bigger than all layoffs in 2022 and 2023 combined, which totaled around 21,000.
Now… why?
There are two main factors.
The first is cost.
Meta plans to nearly double its capex this year, reaching close to $135 billion. Most of that investment goes directly into AI infrastructure—data centers, chips, models…
With an even more ambitious plan: investing hundreds of billions in AI initiatives in the United States by 2028.
The second factor is productivity.
The logic is simple—and brutal:
if AI allows smaller teams to do more, then you need fewer people to deliver the same results.
The impact of Big Tech on the global job market
And this is not an isolated movement.
It’s happening across the industry.
Block Inc. reduced its workforce by 40%, explicitly citing AI as a reason.
Atlassian cut about 10% of employees to redirect investments toward AI and enterprise sales.
Amazon eliminated thousands of roles to simplify structures while accelerating AI investments.
And when you look at this pattern as a whole…
a certain feeling begins to emerge in the market.
A kind of anxiety.
Maybe even the beginning of panic.
Because the question is no longer “if” this will happen…
but “who will be next.”
Now, the fact that Meta—and other Big Techs—are paying “football player” salaries…
seems like a contradiction.
But only on the surface.
Because underneath, it’s exactly the same logic operating at two extremes of the market.
On one side, companies lay off thousands of people.
On the other, they pay astronomical packages to a tiny group of AI researchers and leaders.
This is not incoherent.
It’s a very clear picture of a deep shift in what the market values.
For a long time, value was in execution:
writing code, producing analyses, operationalizing processes, managing workflows, documenting, reviewing, organizing.
All of this is still important—but much of it is structured, repeatable, and decomposable.
And precisely because of that… it’s the first to be compressed by AI.
AI doesn’t replace everything at once.
But it drastically reduces the cost of producing this kind of work.
And then something interesting happens.
The “middle” of the market starts losing value faster.
If before a company needed ten people to produce a certain amount of code, reports, or support…
now it might need six. Or four.
As long as they know how to work with AI.
Efficiency rises.
And the need for labor volume falls.
And that’s exactly why salaries at the top explode.
Because companies are not just paying for individual productivity.
They are paying for something much rarer: cognitive leverage.
An exceptional AI researcher or leader is not valuable because they “produce more.”
They are valuable because they can change the entire trajectory of the company.
Change the product.
Change the strategy.
Change the future.
And when you enter that logic…
salary stops being “salary” in the traditional sense.
It becomes closer to venture capital.
Or elite sports.
If a single person significantly increases your chances of leading the next big AI breakthrough…
paying $100 million may seem expensive.
But losing that person to a competitor… may cost far more.
In other words…
AI is compressing the value of standardized cognition…
and brutally inflating the value of rare cognition.
It doesn’t destroy value evenly.
It redistributes value—unequally.
It reduces the premium on predictable execution,
increases the premium on strategic vision…
and multiplies the premium on rare genius.
And the result is a much more polarized job market.
Less space for purely operational middle roles.
More pressure on “execution generalists.”
And much greater rewards for those who can combine technical depth with decision-making, context, and originality.
Now… the impacts are already visible.
Let’s be honest: it’s harder to get a job today.
Between mass layoffs, hiring freezes…
and AI agents doing the work entire teams used to do just months ago…
the market has changed—and changed fast.
And this happens for three main reasons.
The first, we’ve already seen: mass layoffs.
The second is that fewer new roles are being created.
Data from Randstad shows that entry-level job creation has dropped about 29% in the United States.
And that’s no coincidence—many of those initial tasks are now done by AI.
The third reason is even more direct:
today, AI agents can do work that previously required entire teams.
In other words… companies simply need fewer people to generate the same results.
And the market is so challenging that a new concept has even emerged: reverse recruiting.
Instead of headhunters working for companies, they work for candidates—charging a percentage of salary to help them land a job.
Now… let’s be honest.
People like Alexandr Wang don’t need reverse recruiters.
But what about you?
How much of your work is still tied to predictable execution…
and how much of your value lies in your rare genius?
Because there is a paradox here.
The more unique you are in this market…
the more the market will compete for you.
