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Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

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Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#101

Post by jxf »

altdataseller wrote: post #88
TechnicolorByte wrote: post #57

I still cannot process what’s happened to one of the most prominent and hyped companies of the past year in just one weekend. If it’s true that Altman won’t return to OpenAI (or alternatively: that the current board won’t step down) then where does that leave OpenAI? Microsoft can’t be happy, as evidenced by reporting that Nadella was acting as mediator to bring him back. Does OpenAI survive this? Will be super inter…

OpenAI has hundreds more employees, all of whom are incredibly smart. While they will definitely lose the leadership and talent of those two, it’s not as if a nuclear bomb dropped on their HQ and wiped out all their engineers! So questioning whether they will survive seems very silly and incredibly premature to me

But a number of those other employees have said they'll leave if Altman isn't rehired.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#104

Post by himaraya »

tempsy wrote: post #86
TechnicolorByte wrote: post #57

I still cannot process what’s happened to one of the most prominent and hyped companies of the past year in just one weekend. If it’s true that Altman won’t return to OpenAI (or alternatively: that the current board won’t step down) then where does that leave OpenAI? Microsoft can’t be happy, as evidenced by reporting that Nadella was acting as mediator to bring him back. Does OpenAI survive this? Will be super inter…

Yeah Emmett Shear seems like an odd choice if they’re worried about retention because 1) Twitch was never known to be a particularly great place to work and 2) he stepped down for some reason and not because Twitch was in an amazing place or anything at the time

Emmett's just a placeholder after Murati turned. I suspect he won't stay in his position for long.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#107

Post by toomuchtodo »

nextworddev wrote: post #79
threeseed wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this is going to be great for Microsoft. By cutting its other revenue streams OpenAI has lost all of its leverage. So now will shrink to being effectively an external dev team for Bing / Windows.

Huh? Last time I checked I'm paying OpenAI for my Chatgpt plus subscription, not msft

Microsoft owns the GPUs and has rights to continue operating current models. The only value OpenAI had was cohesion of engineering talent as it relates to model development velocity.

https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/ai/openai-azure-s...

https://www.semafor.com/article/11/18/2023/openai-has-receiv...

> Only a fraction of Microsoft’s $10 billion investment in OpenAI has been wired to the startup, while a significant portion of the funding, divided into tranches, is in the form of cloud compute purchases instead of cash, according to people familiar with their agreement.

> That gives the software giant significant leverage as it sorts through the fallout from the ouster of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The firm’s board said on Friday that it had lost confidence in his ability to lead, without giving additional details.

> One person familiar with the matter said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella believes OpenAI’s directors mishandled Altman’s firing and the action has destabilized a key partner for the company. It’s unclear if OpenAI, which has been racking up expenses as it goes on a hiring spree and pours resources into technological developments, violated its contract with Microsoft by suddenly ousting Altman.

> Microsoft has certain rights to OpenAI’s intellectual property so if their relationship were to break down, Microsoft would still be able to run OpenAI’s current models on its servers.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#108

Post by chubot »

TechnicolorByte wrote: post #57

I still cannot process what’s happened to one of the most prominent and hyped companies of the past year in just one weekend. If it’s true that Altman won’t return to OpenAI (or alternatively: that the current board won’t step down) then where does that leave OpenAI? Microsoft can’t be happy, as evidenced by reporting that Nadella was acting as mediator to bring him back. Does OpenAI survive this? Will be super inter…

What I think is funny is how the whole "we're just doing this to make sure AI is safe" meme breaks down, if you have OpenAI, Anthropic, and Altman AI all competing, which seems likely now.

Do you really need all 3? Is each one going to claim that they're the only ones who can develop AGI safely?

Since Sam left, now OpenAI is unsafe? But I thought they were the safe ones, and he was being reckless.

Or is Sam just going to abandon the pretense, competing Google- and Microsoft-style? e.g. doing placement deals, attracting eyeballs, and crushing the competition.

Surely that's what you need for safety?

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#109

Post by rvz »

_lvbh wrote: post #44

I’m glad people in this thread are supporting the OpenAI board in this decision. There seems to be too much celebrity worship around Altman from all the tech/crypto bros. Also, any new competition started by Altman would be good for the ecosystem in general.

Well the employees have their stock in OpenAI and needed their saviour back to get it realized and it looks like they are now have choice.

Follow their dear saviour into a new venture or stay on a ship with their shares that will begin to sink at markets open.

Microsoft maybe holding a very huge bag. Probably will sue.

Re: Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

#110

Post by siva7 »

beeyaw wrote: post #77
alsodumb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd have agreed with you if it was an extensive board with many experts, both technical and policy, without any strong conflict of interests. But at this point, we have Ilya who clearly has strong difference of opinions with Sam, Adam D'Angelo, whose company Poe has a conflict of interest with the existance of for profit OpenAI and their GPT store/customizable agents, and two other board members.

Are you for real? "Difference of opinions" isn't a problem for a board, it's exactly why multiple people are on one. And Adam will not have any conflict of interest with Poe very shortly.

Adam solved the issue very “elegantly” and Ilya can finally continue allocating more compute for his research interests. A dream of a board as you can see by the reactions of the investors ;)
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