Kamath outlined specific requirements for the roles in his company, Smallest.ai and made his expectations clear, saying he’s looking for candidates who are exceptionally smart and hungry. Photo: Instagram
Indian-origin founder offers lucrative salaries to lure Meta's ousted AI talent
Smallest.ai founder Sudarshan Kamath is offering up to $600,000 base salary and equity for specialists in speech AI, eyeing 600 employees laid off by Meta
Sudarshan Kamath, founder of Smallest.ai and an IIT alumnus based in the US, has joined a wave of entrepreneurs to tap into Meta’s recently laid-off AI talent.
In a post shared this morning, Kamath, who is known for his unconventional hiring posts, urged Meta employees, who were part of the technology company's latest lay offs, to apply to his company. Smallest.ai recently raised an $8 million seed round in 2025.
"Recently laid off from Meta? Smallest AI’s speech team in San Francisco is hiring!” announced the company’s founder.
The announcement has come on the heels of Meta’s decision to lay off 600 employees, with most cuts affecting its AI infrastructure teams, including the Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) unit and various product-focused roles.
Big pay packages
Kamath, who recently raised ₹8 million in seed funding, is offering generous pay packages. He said in his post that base salaries at Smallest.aI could range from $200,000 to $600,000, with equity offered on top. At the upper end, candidates would be earning over half a million dollars annually.
But Kamath has set the bar high. Kamath outlined specific requirements for the roles, including expertise in speech evaluations, speech generation, and full-duplex speech-to-speech systems. He made his expectations clear, saying he’s looking for candidates who are exceptionally smart and hungry. Qualified candidates were encouraged to reach out to Kamath directly.
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Kamath, however, is not alone in signalling strong interest in hiring from the pool of 600 AI professionals let go by the tech giant. A number of founders stepped forward to extend support to Meta’s displaced AI talent.
Spec founder opens doors
Among them was Ben Taylor, founder of Spec, who appreciated the work done by them at Meta. “To everyone impacted by today’s Meta AI layoffs — your work has shaped how we all think about intelligence. At Spec, we’re building ambient intelligence that’s human-centered, contextual, and privacy-first.”
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"If you’ve been part of what made Meta AI great and are looking for what’s next, my DMs are open!”
Invitations pour in
Lucas Atkins of Arcee AI also sent out a call to former Meta employees saying that if they had been recently laid off at Meta Gen AI, his dms are open. "Help us build the next frontier of Apache-2.0 models," he said.
Carina Hong, hiring for Axiom, also addressed her hiring post to laid off Meta employees. “You are world-class. We have read your work. You deserve a new place you call home,” she said.