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

Emmett Shear becomes interim OpenAI CEO as Altman talks break down

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

931–940 of 979 posts

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

#931

Post by DonHopkins »

Raptor22 wrote: post #870
steakscience wrote: post #845

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every SV CEO has a "Sam Altman saved my butt during crucial incident X" story

What are some examples of these crucial incidents?

It was a dark and stormy night off the coast of Maine. The winds were howling, the waves were monstrous, and there I was, stranded on my lobster fishing boat in the middle of a hurricane. The sea was a ferocious beast, tossing my vessel around like a toy. Just when all seemed lost, a figure appeared on the horizon. It was Sam Altman, riding a giant, neon-lit drone, battling the tempest with nothing but his bare hands and indomitable will.

As he approached, lightning crackled around him, as if he was commanding the elements themselves. With a deft flick of his wrist, he sent a bolt of lightning to scare away a school of flying sharks that were drawn by the storm. Landing on the deck of my boat with the grace of a superhero, he surveyed the chaos.

"Need a hand with those lobsters?" he quipped, as he single-handedly wrangled the crustaceans with an efficiency that would put any seasoned fisherman to shame. But Sam wasn't done yet. With a mere glance, he reprogrammed my malfunctioning GPS using his mind, charting a course to safety.

As the boat rocked violently, a massive wave loomed over us, threatening to engulf everything. Sam, unfazed, simply turned to the wave and whispered a few unintelligible words. Incredibly, the wave halted in its tracks, parting around us like the Red Sea. He then casually conjured a gourmet meal from the lobsters, serving it with a fine wine that materialized out of thin air.

Just as quickly as he had appeared, Sam mounted his drone once more. "Time to go innovate the weather," he said with a wink, before soaring off into the storm, leaving behind a trail of rainbows.

As the skies cleared and the sea calmed, I realized that in the world of Silicon Valley CEOs, having a "Sam Altman saved my butt" story was more than just a rite of passage; it was a testament to the boundless, almost mythical capabilities of a man who defied the very laws of nature and business. And I, a humble lobster fisherman, had just become part of that legend.

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

#932

Post by dragontamer »

mschuster91 wrote: post #884
jonbell wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s possible be extremely smart in one narrow way and a complete idiot when it comes to understanding leadership, people, politics, etc. For example, Elon Musk was smart enough to do some things … then he crashed and burned with Twitter because it’s about people and politics. He could not have done a worse job, despite being “smart.”

> For example, Elon Musk was smart enough to do some things … then he crashed and burned with Twitter because it’s about people and politics. He could not have done a worse job, despite being “smart.” That is, if you do not subscribe to one of the various theories that him sinking Twitter was intentional. The most popular ones I've come across are "Musk wants revenge for Twitter turning his daughter trans", "Saudi-Ar…

> Personally, I think all three have merits - because otherwise, why didn't the Saudis and other financiers go and pull an Altman on Musk? It's not Musk's personal money he's burning on Twitter, it's to a large degrees other people's money.

Of the $46 Billion Twitter deal ($44 equity + $2 debt buyout), it was:

* $13 Billion Loans (bank funded)

* $33 Billion Equity -- of this, ~$9 Billion was estimated to be investors (including Musk, Saudis, Larry Ellison, etc. etc.)

So its about 30% other investors and 70% Elon Musk money.

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

#933

Post by wyager »

behringer wrote: post #465
alsodumb wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every researcher I know at OpenAI who are on twitter re-tweeted Sam Atlman's heart tweet with their own heart or some other supportive message. I'm sure that's a sign that they are all team Sam - this includes a ton of researchers you see on most papers that came out of OpenAI. That's a good chunk of their research team and that'd be a very big loss. Also there are tons of engineers (and I know a few of t…

Why a researcher would concern him or herself with management politics is beyond me? Particularly with a glorified sales man. Sounds like they aren't spending enough time actually working.

Given that the board coup was orchestrated by AI safetyists, it likely has a pretty direct bearing on life as a researcher. What are you allowed to work on? What procedures and red tape are in place? Etc.

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

#934

Post by wyager »

bmitc wrote: post #592

Through all of this, no one has cogently explained why Altman leaving is such a big deal. Why would workers immediately quit their job when he has no other company, and does he even know who these workers are? Are these people that desperate to make a buck (or the prospect of big bucks)? It seems like half of the people working at the non-profit were not actually concerned about the mission but rather just waiting ou…

Altman was fired because people who want to slow the progress of AI orchestrated his firing.

Whether or not he works at the company is symbolic and indicative of who is in charge: the people who want to slow AI progress, or the people who want to speed it up.

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

#935

Post by jncfhnb »

bmitc wrote: post #592

Through all of this, no one has cogently explained why Altman leaving is such a big deal. Why would workers immediately quit their job when he has no other company, and does he even know who these workers are? Are these people that desperate to make a buck (or the prospect of big bucks)? It seems like half of the people working at the non-profit were not actually concerned about the mission but rather just waiting ou…

I don’t get it either. Who gives two shits about a sv bigwig who’s playbook appears to have been promote open ai and then immediately try to pull up the ladder and lock it with regulatory action.

This guy is a villain.

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

#936

Post by MrScruff »

mlyle wrote: post #649
MrScruff wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AI gets to human levels of intelligence (ie. can do novel research in theoretical physics) then at the very least it’s likely that over time it will be able to do this reasoning faster than humans. I think it’s very hard to imagine a scenario where we create an actual AGI and then within a few years at most of that event the AGIs are far more capable than human brains. That would imply there was some arbitrary phy…

> it’s very hard to imagine a scenario where we create an actual AGI and then within a few years at most of that event the AGIs are far more capable than human brains. I'm assuming you meant "aren't" here. > That would imply there was some arbitrary physical limit to intelligence All you need is some kind of sub-linear scaling law for peak possible "intelligence" vs. the amount of raw computation. There's a lot of re…

I think it depends what is meant by fast take off. If we created AGIs that are superhuman in ML and architecture design you could see a significantly more rapid rate of progress in hardware and software at the same time. It might not be overnight but it could still be fast enough that we wouldn’t have the global political structures in place to effectively manage it.

I do agree that intelligence and compute scaling will have limits, but it seems overly optimistic to assume we’re close to them already.

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

#937

Post by toomuchtodo »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #107
nextworddev wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sign…

Citation: https://www.semianalysis.com/p/microsoft-swallows-openais-co... ("Microsoft Swallows OpenAI’s Core Team – GPU Capacity, Incentive Structure, Intellectual Property, OpenAI Rump State")

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

#938

Post by adastra22 »

vasco wrote: post #691
adastra22 wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Berger’s book Liftoff details the early years of SpaceX based on interviews with the people involved. They all speak highly of Elon’s engineering expertise and the critical design decisions he made.

I have no inside information, but a biographical book written with exclusive interviews to the person basically means it's a PR book. It maybe also has interesting and true things, but that's like justifying that he knows engineering because his mom said so.

Eric Berger is a highly respected journalist. There was no editorial control from Elon/SpaceX.

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

#939

Post by [deleted] »

vasco wrote: post #691
adastra22 wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Berger’s book Liftoff details the early years of SpaceX based on interviews with the people involved. They all speak highly of Elon’s engineering expertise and the critical design decisions he made.

I have no inside information, but a biographical book written with exclusive interviews to the person basically means it's a PR book. It maybe also has interesting and true things, but that's like justifying that he knows engineering because his mom said so.

[deleted]

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

#940

Post by bongodongobob »

xigency wrote: post #806
bongodongobob wrote: post #728

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linux isn't the workhorse in any business that isn't tech based. The dev bubble here is pretty strong. I've done IT for a couple MSPs now so I've seen 100s of different tech stacks. No one uses Linux for anything. ESXi for the hypervisors, various version of Windows server, and M365 for everything else. Graphics/marketing uses Macs sometimes but other than that, it's all Windows/MS. Seeing a Linux VM is exceeding rar…

So I’m guessing you have never heard of AWS then…

I'm not talking about cloud. I'm talking about businesses with 1-300 employees. Most of them I've seen use cloud for backups or a few services. Most business stuff is on prem. File storage is probably 50/50 on prem / SharePoint / Google Drive. In the hundreds of business I've worked with, I could count on my 2 hands the number of Linux server I've seen. Most of the stuff they're running doesn't even support Linux.
Post reply on HN