Mark Zuckerberg hand-delivered homemade soup to OpenAI researchers’ front doors in an attempt to recruit them. Elon Musk pledged to personally read every SpaceX AI application—no résumé required; pedigree optional. When the world’s richest founders are cold-calling engineers with soup and big-figure job offers, it’s clear the AI talent war has reached a new, absurd level.

But Meta and SpaceX aren’t the only ones taking outlandish measures to attract talent in the tightest hiring market in tech history. The median base salary for startup engineers is $200,000, a 25% increase since 2022 and a far cry from the equity-first model that startups have relied on for decades. 

Artificial intelligence roles are taking a long time to fill, and there are plenty of them. AI, machine learning, and data science postings jumped 163% in 2025 from 2024, yet 72% of employers say they’re struggling to fill roles. The challenge isn’t just supply. It’s also a hiring strategy issue. The old model of a charismatic founder with a vision—and often no product yet—is out. AI talent wants to see hard proof, not a pitch deck. 

I recently published research on how founders and AI specialists interact on CoffeeSpace , a platform focused on helping startups build early teams from cofounder matching to recruitment. The matching works like a dating app; users send invitations the same way you swipe on Tinder or Hinge. Except instead of singles searching for a match, founders and engineers decide whether to accept or decline an invitation to start a conversation.

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