The Porsche Promise That Shook the Tech World

When Karan Vaidya, co-founder of AI infra startup Composio, promised a Porsche to anyone who referred a product engineer that joined their San Francisco team and stayed three months, it sounded like a stunt. But he wasn’t joking. “Not kidding,” he wrote in the now-viral X post, complete with a photo of a black Porsche model he had in mind.

Karan Vaidya (right) and fellow Composio co-founder Soham Ganatra

The Escalating AI Talent Race

Just hours later, Roy Lee, co-founder of Cluely, another early-stage AI startup, chimed in with his own no-nonsense offer. “I’ll triple your base salary,” he posted, as he searched for a founding designer. “No questions asked.”

Big Tech Joins the Fray

The timing is uncanny. This same week, Microsoft reportedly poached 24 AI researchers from Google DeepMind, including Amar Subramanya, the former engineering head of the Gemini team, who is now a corporate VP at Microsoft AI. A day later, Meta hired three DeepMind scientists who had helped build a language model that achieved gold medal-level performance in the International Math Olympiad.

The High Cost of Innovation

For founders like Vaidya and Lee, who are building AI-native products in public, the job post has become a statement. It’s part recruitment, part performance art and very much a reflection of how fierce the competition for technical talent has become in AI.

A Warning from the Experts

“There’s a real risk that we’re overpaying for momentum and mistaking it for durability,” said Manav Garg, co-founder and managing partner at Together Fund. “High-visibility compensation moves can bring in mercenaries rather than missionaries. That’s dangerous for early-stage companies where cultural fit and long-term belief in the vision are as critical as technical skill.”