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

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 154 posts

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

#121

Post by [deleted] »

CPLX wrote: post #120
MrLeap wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

[deleted]

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

#122

Post by TapWaterBandit »

CPLX wrote: post #120
MrLeap wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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?

Not saying it will happen but I'd honestly say this would be the least of the issues. VC's and established companies would be fighting tooth and nail to invest money in whatever venture Sam Altman/Greg Brockman + whatever % of staffers were launching. Money would not be the problem here. Think of how much money so many were willing to throw at the con-job that the vast majority of crypto was and then think of how much money they would throw at AI tools (which are clearly a big deal already).

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

#123

Post by CPLX »

TapWaterBandit wrote: post #122
CPLX wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> 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? Not saying it will happen but I'd honestly say this would be the least of the issues. VC's and established companies…

I mean we’ll see.

As far as I can tell Altman’s real serious talent is getting billionaire types to like him. First Paul Graham then Elon and the initial OpenAI funders. In both cases he seems to have been dropped rather abruptly after running things for a few years.

He has never personally built meaningful tech and has definitely never actually demonstrated anything approaching popularity with any rank and file employees.

Might happen. But it sure hasn’t yet. I don’t doubt that the Davos / Bohemian Grove set will install him in another position though, he does seem to have a genuine knack for that.

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

#124

Post by projectileboy »

infoseek12 wrote: post #108
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)?

Even if he isn’t critical to OpenAI’s future there is the issue of how the board handled this. They surprised everyone from their most significant investors to their employees, which would be justified if they have a very good reason. Without an excellent reason, all of this looks capricious and incompetent.

Thank you - this is one of the few reasonable takes I've seen on this whole mess. There is literally nothing Altman could have done that would justify the board having handled the situation in this way, and it makes them look grossly incompetent. Even if Altman had been engaged in some kind of criminal act, this is not the way in which you proceed. And regardless of whatever corporate structures you have in place, it is the height of naivete to think you can ignore the concerns of people who have written you a $10B check.

I do think this is a shame, because the structure had the potential to allow altruistic people to maintain some kind of governor on the commercial growth engine, but now that will be gone.

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

#125

Post by glitchc »

brookst wrote: post #79
glitchc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The cult of personality seems to have a strong grip on the US zeitgeist. Technology is the new religion and Musk/Altman are the new messiahs, with Jobs and Gates as the patron saints.

It’s funny how those who most decry cults end up sounding so cultish. The opposite of cult worship is NOT cult antipathy.

While sounding pithy, this is logically flawed. The opposite of theism is atheism, not agnosticism.

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

#126

Post by gpsx »

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)?

I don't think the backlash is about one person as much as it is the direction of the company. Doing something for the good of humanity is all well and good, which seems to be the boards position, but I think they really need to test themselves in the market if they want to make something good. And then there are the employees and the investors who would much rather see more money come out of this.

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

#127

Post by glitchc »

the_only_law wrote: post #85
glitchc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The cult of personality seems to have a strong grip on the US zeitgeist. Technology is the new religion and Musk/Altman are the new messiahs, with Jobs and Gates as the patron saints.

It’s mostly just this site and the SV delusion it’s connected with. I’d bet if you ask random Americans, they would have no idea who Altman even is.

Nah, you can replace Sam with a deity of choice depending on the group, ex. Taylor Swift.

As organized religion recedes, people fill the vacuum with gods of their own making.

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

#128

Post by cmrdporcupine »

gumballindie wrote: post #6
floydnoel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not necessarily any more than Steve Jobs returning to Apple made it worse.

What’s up with comparing altman to steve jobs? He’s well behind him on the scale of leadership, inspiration, vision, and not to mention he had little to no contribution to ai, other than a crypto style aggressive marketing campaign, sprinkled with fud fomo and gaslighting.

This is a site run by YCombinator. Altman is Paul Graham's bud, and YCombinator alumni.

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

#129

Post by TapWaterBandit »

CPLX wrote: post #123
TapWaterBandit wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? Not saying it will happen but I'd honestly say this would be the least of the issues. VC's and established companies…

I mean we’ll see. As far as I can tell Altman’s real serious talent is getting billionaire types to like him. First Paul Graham then Elon and the initial OpenAI funders. In both cases he seems to have been dropped rather abruptly after running things for a few years. He has never personally built meaningful tech and has definitely never actually demonstrated anything approaching popularity with any rank and file empl…

Not just the billionaire type though, right? We are discussing staff leaving with him for that very reason.

And he did VC fund-raising before that for early projects too. Give his Wikipedia a read.

He is clearly a very savvy businessman and smooth operator on a personal level. And has been involved in enough high profile successes that I don't think it is a fluke.

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

#130

Post by vikramkr »

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.

It's not like he's going to have any trouble at all raising enough money to match their compensation, and if he's going to build the ruthlessly for profit version who wouldnt switch over? These folks make too much money to care about kids and mortgages and car payments.
Post reply on HN