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

95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 67 posts

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#41

Post by tomohelix »

One thing is at some point, you are peer pressured into signing a petition. When your boss, your coworkers, and your reports are already in it, you got to be in it too.

That said, it would still take a significant number of people before it gets to the snowballing phase and it is obvious OAI won't come out of this unscathed.

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#42

Post by darknavi »

ahipple wrote: post #23
optimalsolver wrote: post #13

One of the remaining 32: "Hey, man, I'm just the Linux guy."

Given the timing the remaining 32 could plausibly just be the set of people who are hard OOO for the (US) Thanksgiving holiday week -- on airplanes, in cars, or otherwise indisposed and out of touch with 'work news' for a few days.

Or are in the US on sensitive visas and can't just quit without something else lined up.

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#43

Post by YiraldyGuber »

darknavi wrote: post #42
ahipple wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the timing the remaining 32 could plausibly just be the set of people who are hard OOO for the (US) Thanksgiving holiday week -- on airplanes, in cars, or otherwise indisposed and out of touch with 'work news' for a few days.

Or are in the US on sensitive visas and can't just quit without something else lined up.

[dead]

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#45

Post by meibo »

ahipple wrote: post #23
optimalsolver wrote: post #13

One of the remaining 32: "Hey, man, I'm just the Linux guy."

Given the timing the remaining 32 could plausibly just be the set of people who are hard OOO for the (US) Thanksgiving holiday week -- on airplanes, in cars, or otherwise indisposed and out of touch with 'work news' for a few days.

Imagine going on vacation from your extremely well paid silicon valley AI job, just to find the company gone and that everyone around you quit a few days ago. I'm sure that happened a few times already but it's not a situation I'd like to find myself in.

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#46

Post by pyrophane »

I would be curious to know under what circumstances the board indicated that "'allowing the company to be destroyed' would be consistent with the mission'. Because there are some circumstances under which it would. The most obvious is the reason why you strap a shotgun to that server, so to speak.

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#48

Post by letmevoteplease »

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #18
dschofie wrote: post #3

Makes you wonder how many other companies would have this level of consensus supporting their CEO

It's apples and oranges. Employees are expressing a preference for making a profit versus the nonprofit board. I'm sort of impressed 5% of the crowd might elevate conscience over cash. No other business has been so insane as to pursue a naked profit objective under the guise of a nonprofit operation. The fact that Altman did so is not a virtue, in my opinion.

You're accepting the board's good vs. evil framing without any evidence that Altman sacrificed safety for profit, or that the board (the Quora guy, really?) is any better. OpenAI needs money to achieve its mission. Training GPT-4 alone cost over $100 million. Commercializing the product is not bad in itself.

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#49

Post by aoeusnth1 »

jmyeet wrote: post #4

Just your daily reminder that there is no value without labor. The board has come off looking awful here regardless of the merits of their actions. That alone is reason why they should be replaced.

Value can be 100% contingent on factor X without factor X taking all of the responsibility for it. All value is contingent on the sun, atmosphere, and natural life supporting our existence on earth, but we don’t see comments on every thread about how value is 100% dependent on trees.

Similarly, labor does not deserve 100% of the fruits of the economic system.

Re: 95% of OpenAI Employees (738/770) Threaten to Follow Sam Altman Out the Door

#50

Post by skygazer »

afavour wrote: post #40
skygazer wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None. A CEO with >95% approval rating is unheard of, even considering sole-proprietorships

This isn’t an approval rating, though. For one it’s public. I’m sure there’s a lot of pressure, spoken or unspoken, to sign.

I must admit, the first clause of my sentence was mostly a vehicle for the second clause, the punchline — sole-proprietors not approving of themselves. It loses a bit in the explaining. Although whatever that 95% is a proxy for, they clearly trust Altman dramatically, enough to endure a job at a Microsoft subsidiary.
Post reply on HN