Elon Musk recently called for Austin’s best minds to come work at his tech-psychic startup.
Neuralink, Musk’s tech-enabled telepathic startup, just posted four open positions in Austin, with the company looking to hire three engineers and an accountant, as first reported by Bloomberg. The news comes on the heels of Musk touting Neuralink’s tech and hiring plans at a press event last week, where he hosted a variety of media outlets at the company’s 50,000-square-foot Fremont headquarters.
Founded in 2016, Neuralink essentially wants to read your mind. The startup aims to develop a consumer-grade computer-brain interface device that could, ideally, be implanted in human brains and used to restore vision, increase memory, develop individuals’ speech capabilities and ... more.
At last week’s event, Bloomberg reported that Musk expects to grow the 100-person company to about 10,000 employees. He called for coders, engineers and those with experience having created a product to apply. Musk noted that applicants do not need to have experience working with the brain.
Neuralink executives also used the event to deny claims that the startup was thinking of moving to China or Russia to take advantage of lax laws around human testing. The company is currently piloting its product on pigs.
Neuralink is funded primarily through $158 million Musk has so far invested. He’s not the only billionaire looking to build the computer-cognitive connection.
In July, the LA-based Kernel announced it raised $53 million in Series C funding, as a way to accelerate development of its neuroscience-as-a-service product. The LA startup was founded, and is so far primarily funded, by Bryan Johnson, who also started and sold payments company Braintree. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also threw research dollars into the now-defunct Building 8, a startup that also aimed to create a computer-brain interface.
Neuralink’s local job postings follow another recent Austin investment by Musk. In July, Musk announced he is bringing Tesla’s latest gigafactory to Austin. At the time, sources told Built In that they thought Musk might move the electronic vehicle maker’s headquarters from California to Texas.
Musk plans to hire 5,000 workers at the new gigafactory, making it the city’s largest tech employer. Since making the July announcement, Tesla has posted 80 open jobs in Austin on its site, with open positions ranging from site reliability engineers to project managers to marketers.
