Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 596 posts

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#101

Post by jessenaser »

mrtksn wrote: post #98
breadwinner wrote: post #57

The key question in my mind is not who is going to be on the new board, but whether Ilya Sutskever will stay if Altman comes back. I worry that OpenAI without Ilya is not going to produce groundbreaking innovations at the same pace. Hopefully Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever can patch things up. That's more important than who they add or remove to the board.

Currently, it’s very unclear who operates under what motives. How much is it about ego? How much is it about money and how much is it due to intellectual positions? Maybe there’re are no heroes and maybe there’re no antiheroes? With the recent news about other investments and deals, the facade doesn’t seem to even resemble the OpenAI’s reality. I can’t wait to read the autobiography of involved parties.

Sam Altman by Walter Isaacson

Releasing 2037...

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#102

Post by foobarqux »

breadwinner wrote: post #57

The key question in my mind is not who is going to be on the new board, but whether Ilya Sutskever will stay if Altman comes back. I worry that OpenAI without Ilya is not going to produce groundbreaking innovations at the same pace. Hopefully Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever can patch things up. That's more important than who they add or remove to the board.

The other question is what happens to the pretense of "safety". The CEO explicitly said multiple times that he does not have unilateral control, that he is subordinate to the board and that the board's job was to remove him if it he was pursuing an unsafe course. Assuming he gets re-instated that would all be shown to be false.

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#103

Post by imjonse »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #74
kranke155 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any way he can even stay if Altman returns? Seems like one of them is out and making their own AI venture soon.

He’d probably be better off going to Meta or HuggingFace and working on getting open source as close to OpenAI’s offerings as possible. I expect that real innovation (vs. commercialization) is now fully dead at OpenAI, with them instead focusing on ROÍ for Microsoft.

He's opposed to making powerful models open source, unfortunately.

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#104

Post by siva7 »

breadwinner wrote: post #57

The key question in my mind is not who is going to be on the new board, but whether Ilya Sutskever will stay if Altman comes back. I worry that OpenAI without Ilya is not going to produce groundbreaking innovations at the same pace. Hopefully Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever can patch things up. That's more important than who they add or remove to the board.

Ilya will do just fine after openai but there is zero chance that he will stay there as too many bridges are burned.

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#105

Post by [deleted] »

jessenaser wrote: post #101
mrtksn wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, it’s very unclear who operates under what motives. How much is it about ego? How much is it about money and how much is it due to intellectual positions? Maybe there’re are no heroes and maybe there’re no antiheroes? With the recent news about other investments and deals, the facade doesn’t seem to even resemble the OpenAI’s reality. I can’t wait to read the autobiography of involved parties.

Sam Altman by Walter Isaacson Releasing 2037...

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#106

Post by sdenton4 »

Simon_ORourke wrote: post #39
cedws wrote: post #5

The only power MS has is soft power as a backer. Will that win over the board's actual power? If MS pulls investment it will be a catastrophic blow.

That's the choice isn't it. Either reinstall Sam Altman and sack the board, or move the funding to whatever entity he goes and sets up next.

Or set off a new bidding war for both the researchers that quit and the pile of new startups... There's no rule that stays M$ would have to be the only bidder for the new venture(s).

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#107

Post by [deleted] »

shmerl wrote: post #23
itchy_spider44 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ilya is the stereotypical genius mind that is extremely passionate yet disconnected from the real world. He got way too worked up about abstract issues, failed to see the bigger picture and had a meltdown that other board members took seriously because he's a cofounder. He is instrumental in the research but he shouldn't be running the business.

If "bigger picture" means making more money with less safety concerns, then I think he is totally right to oppose that.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#108

Post by Dudester230602 »

alecco wrote: post #93
layer8 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he’s lucky that apparently many OpenAI employees support him, as otherwise there would be less leverage over the board. Investors can threaten the board, but where would they go if the brainpower stays with OpenAI?

> I think he’s lucky that apparently many OpenAI employees support him This claim on the press had zero substance. It could well be, but there were no wide resignations or anything. Just 4 execs. OTOH, Altman going for the high score could bump employee TCO 10x. So who knows. Passion vs greed.

> Passion vs greed.

In a city where a normal person cannot buy a house and employer wants 25% office time? Give me a break, they just want to live like people could in 1950s.

Re: OpenAI negotiations to reinstate Altman hit snag over board role

#110

Post by siva7 »

staticman2 wrote: post #71
Simon_ORourke wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the choice isn't it. Either reinstall Sam Altman and sack the board, or move the funding to whatever entity he goes and sets up next.

I've seen people say this but why would Microsoft fund a new Altman startup instead of spending that money on developing their own AI owned by Microsoft?

Like Google did?
Post reply on HN