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OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

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Re: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

#111

Post by John7149 »

nicce wrote: post #83
m_ke wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is one of the most well connected people in tech and probably responsible for all of their partnerships and fundraising success. His departure in this fashion would make it really hard for them to raise as much money as they will need and potentially put them on a blacklist of a lot of YC companies. To top it off he'd probably raise a few billion and poach half of the team.

> His departure in this fashion would make it really hard for them to raise as much money as they will need and potentially put them on a blacklist of a lot of YC companies. How does this matter anymore? OpenAI is the most known company from the last year. You don’t need specific person anymore to market about your company. If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, then everyone just hopes tha…

He can poach away half the staff IMMEDIATELY. You cannot run a company with majority of your key personnels gone in a week. Then the remaining staff will be moving over within 3mths to a year. What OpenAI will be left in a year time will be back to square one, startup mode. Whatever tech they have now it will stay stagnant. Whatever tech Altman started in his new venture will be just slightly behind what OpenAI has. Within a year Altman will supercede it. He is that important. Think Steve Jobs to Apple but AI.

Re: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

#112

Post by blackoil »

jrflowers wrote: post #98
trashtester wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. OpenAI was created as a non-profit, and I don't think they have any kind of fudiciary duty to create profit.

It is a special thing, a for-profit 501c3. At tax time it is tax exempt but when a guy I like gets fired the investors can leverage their donationvestments to fire the board and push the chari-business into further profitability. It is a good setup and it makes sense why so many people are cheering things on today :)

MS investments are in for-profit company, not the parent.

Re: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

#113

Post by late2part »

ravenhappy wrote: post #93

From what's been said a plausible explanation could be the sama was being courted by saudi investors, incl vision fund, to make AI silicon, for 100 billion dollars, and wasn't upfront with the board. Who knows, total speculation, but definitely grounds for dismissal. Of course he was probably a managed asset, and who knows what kind of complexity is behind the scenes. OpenAI has a very valuable product. Not supportin…

Serious question...

Do Saudi/Middle Eastern sovereign money funds often invest in gay founders/executives?

Re: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

#114

Post by Hizonner »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #43
bogwog wrote: post #32

I don't follow OpenAI or SV news all that much. Is this guy really that critical to the company? I thought Ilya Sutskever was the genius? Is this a non-compete thing, where they're scared Altman will take company secrets to a competitor, or is this dude actually a major factor in the company's success (and not just a lucky bystander)?

Ilya is certainly the brains behind ChatGPT, but I believe a lot of engineering talent recently joined OpenAI because they aligned with Sam and Greg’s vision of making consumer software and commercializing it. So while you’re right that Sama isn’t crucial to OpenAI, I think a lot more employees are aligned with Sama’s vision .

Having those people quit could be a feature, rather than a bug.

If that "vision" is the thing that you're worried about, because you think rapid commercialization is actively dangerous, then you may very well have a reason to want to completely blow up the commercial side of OpenAI. Even if it gets reconstituted elsewhere, you've at least created a speed bump by forcing it to get reconstituted.

It's inconvenient that in the medium to long term that means you wind up with fewer GPUs for the True Cause(TM), but at least the people you have working on it believe in that cause, and at least you haven't actively accelerated some destructive outcome.

Re: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

#115

Post by CPLX »

John7149 wrote: post #111
nicce wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His departure in this fashion would make it really hard for them to raise as much money as they will need and potentially put them on a blacklist of a lot of YC companies. How does this matter anymore? OpenAI is the most known company from the last year. You don’t need specific person anymore to market about your company. If it is up to single person whether company is worth investment, then everyone just hopes tha…

He can poach away half the staff IMMEDIATELY. You cannot run a company with majority of your key personnels gone in a week. Then the remaining staff will be moving over within 3mths to a year. What OpenAI will be left in a year time will be back to square one, startup mode. Whatever tech they have now it will stay stagnant. Whatever tech Altman started in his new venture will be just slightly behind what OpenAI has.…

Those people have kids and mortgages and car payments. And are very well compensated. They aren’t gone by this time next week. Is there any precedent for that? Nobody does that.

Yeah sure eventually he could poach people and it’s always possible that this is the beginning of a transition but there’s some seriously magical thinking going on here.

Re: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

#116

Post by jrflowers »

blackoil wrote: post #112
jrflowers wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a special thing, a for-profit 501c3. At tax time it is tax exempt but when a guy I like gets fired the investors can leverage their donationvestments to fire the board and push the chari-business into further profitability. It is a good setup and it makes sense why so many people are cheering things on today :)

MS investments are in for-profit company, not the parent.

Exactly, that’s why the investors should get to fire the board of the charity

Re: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

#117

Post by Hizonner »

late2part wrote: post #113
ravenhappy wrote: post #93

From what's been said a plausible explanation could be the sama was being courted by saudi investors, incl vision fund, to make AI silicon, for 100 billion dollars, and wasn't upfront with the board. Who knows, total speculation, but definitely grounds for dismissal. Of course he was probably a managed asset, and who knows what kind of complexity is behind the scenes. OpenAI has a very valuable product. Not supportin…

Serious question... Do Saudi/Middle Eastern sovereign money funds often invest in gay founders/executives?

They work with Peter Thiel.

And they work with all kinds of infidels and sinners in general. Money is money.

Re: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

#118

Post by geodel »

CPLX wrote: post #77
linkgoron wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI is not a "thing", the workers are a thing. OpenAI is nothing if the engineers/scientists leave the company to work somewhere else if Altman leaves. According to reports, the head of research and other senior staff have said that they will resign if Altman is not restored as CEO.

Yes that’s somewhat correct. If he really has the loyalty of a huge percentage of the staff and they leave to follow him you’re right. But you might want to question why you’re so sure that’s the case. People talk about that a lot but it’s pretty rare to actually see that happen. The usual way things like this go is most people go huh how about that and go back to work at their job the next day and think about their…

> But you might want to question why you’re so sure that’s the case. People talk about that a lot but it’s pretty rare to actually see that happen.

Difference here is OpenAI is not Google or FB with tens of thousands of employees bulk of which are engineers most likely not be able to get current level of compensation in case of mass layoff/resignations. OpenAI is couple of hundred people and are highly rated due to perceived level of success. So it is opposite of risk to follow the leader who has gotten them high level of compensation so far.

> He seems incredibly good at ingratiating himself with extremely powerful people

You seem to think it is negative. For most people including OpenAI employees it is great advantage to be working for/with him.

Re: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

#119

Post by MrLeap »

CPLX wrote: post #115
John7149 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can poach away half the staff IMMEDIATELY. You cannot run a company with majority of your key personnels gone in a week. Then the remaining staff will be moving over within 3mths to a year. What OpenAI will be left in a year time will be back to square one, startup mode. Whatever tech they have now it will stay stagnant. Whatever tech Altman started in his new venture will be just slightly behind what OpenAI has.…

Those people have kids and mortgages and car payments. And are very well compensated. They aren’t gone by this time next week. Is there any precedent for that? Nobody does that. Yeah sure eventually he could poach people and it’s always possible that this is the beginning of a transition but there’s some seriously magical thinking going on here.

I have no reason to believe Sam Altman's a similar case, but have you heard of Nick Calandra? He was editor and chief of the escapist. Last week he got fired, the entire video department (~20 people) resigned and they immediately started a company together called Second Wind.

Re: OpenAI investors try to get Sam Altman back as CEO after sudden firing

#120

Post by CPLX »

MrLeap wrote: post #119
CPLX wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people have kids and mortgages and car payments. And are very well compensated. They aren’t gone by this time next week. Is there any precedent for that? Nobody does that. Yeah sure eventually he could poach people and it’s always possible that this is the beginning of a transition but there’s some seriously magical thinking going on here.

I have no reason to believe Sam Altman's a similar case, but have you heard of Nick Calandra? He was editor and chief of the escapist. Last week he got fired, the entire video department (~20 people) resigned and they immediately started a company together called Second Wind.

Sure I’ll buy 20 employees walking. That’s plausible.

OpenAI has 700 and they’re highly compensated. How would you even onboard and meet payroll in a week for a non existent entity if you suddenly had even half that number?

Answer is that won’t happen. The point being most sane people will wait around to see if anything really changes. Why wouldn’t they, what do they even have to lose by waiting?

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