Do Superstars Really Shine When They Switch Jobs?

The Hidden Truth About Talent Mobility in the AI Era is that the global scramble for artificial intelligence (AI) talent has turned into one of the most competitive recruiting battles in modern business history.

No wonder why Tech giants are offering a crazy amount of money that once sounded impossible just to lure a handful of brilliant minds.

Reports suggest that Meta’s boss, Mark Zuckerberg, is personally leading efforts to recruit for his new “superintelligence” lab, offers that could exceed $200 million to pull top AI leaders away from rivals.

OpenAI, meanwhile, is said to be recalibrating its pay packages to prevent defections. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are in the mix too, fighting for the brightest engineers and scientists as though they were star footballers in a transfer market.

But do superstars even really perform well when they move to new companies or is their success more tied to context than raw brilliance?

If you are a football fan you might understand better that recruiting super star players for millions might not always work. It's clear that they performed better in their former club but failed to replicate the same success in their new club.

The assumption behind these multi-million-dollar hires is simple great people will always produce great results, no matter where they go. But research suggests otherwise.

As a matter of fact an existing worker might thrive better when promoted than a new super star.

Simply because Insiders already know the organization’s systems, culture, and politics.

They know who to ask when they hit a wall and how to navigate processes without wasting time. In contrast, even the smartest outsider may struggle at first with the basics like who signs off on what, how to get access to tools, or even how to log into systems.

A deeper challenge exists because most of the time a star’s performance is often inseparable from the environment they came from.

Think of it like a football player. A striker who scores 30 goals at one club may fail to replicate that at another if the midfield no longer feeds him the right passes. (Another angle)

The brilliance hasn’t disappeared, but the supporting cast, culture, and style of play have changed. The same applies to business.

The companies that win the AI race may not simply be those that spend the most on talent, but those that create ecosystems where that talent can truly thrive.