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Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

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Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#41

Post by firebirdn99 »

fallingknife wrote: post #9
lulznews wrote: post #5

So even if you maintain strict board control, the money people can still kick you out. Incredible!

Technically no, but when 90% of their employees threatened to quit, they would just be the board of nothing.

The board was a non profit board serving the mission. Mission was foremost. Employees are not. One of the comments a member made was, if the company was destroyed, it would still be consistent with serving the mission. Which is right.

The fallout showed non-profit missions can't co-exist with for-profit incentives. And the power that investors were exerting, and employees (who would also benefit from the recent 70B round they were going to have) was too much.

And any disclaimer the investors got when investing in OpenAI was meaningless. It reportedly stated they would be wise in viewing their investment as charity, and they can potentially lose everything. And there was an AGI clause that said it will reconsider all financial arrangements, that Microsoft and other investors had when investing in the company was all worthless. Link to Wired article with interesting details -https://www.wired.com/story/what-openai-really-wants/

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#42

Post by freedomben »

stingraycharles wrote: post #24
jacquesm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't equate to having 'customer representation' that equates to 'Quora representation'. Customers are represented by a voice-of-the-customer board where many customers, large and small can be represented who then vote for a representative to the board. The board of the non-profit having a for-profit customer (and a large one at that) as a board member makes zero sense, that's just one more end-run around 'the…

I don’t think they necessarily owe the public an explanation, and I’m fairly sure that privately everyone that needs to know, already knows.

You don't think that as a non-profit, the public is owed and explanation? As the public, we exempt them from taxes that everyone else has to pay, because we acknowledge that nonprofit is in the interest of people. I think they do owe us an explanation. If they were a private for-profit company, I would probably feel differently, but given their non-profit status, and the fact that their mission is explicitly to serve humanity with AI that they worry could destroy the race or the planet for more, I think they owe us an explanation.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#44

Post by jprete »

Grae wrote: post #29
meetpateltech wrote: post #7

Sam Altman: I recognize that during this process some questions were raised about Adam’s potential conflict of interest running Quora and Poe while being on the OpenAI Board. For the record, I want to state that Adam has always been very clear with me and the Board about the potential conflict and doing whatever he needed to do (recusing himself when appropriate and even offering to leave the Board if we ever thought…

This line is really interesting: > The best interests of the company and the mission always come first. That is absolutely not true for the nonprofit inc. The mission comes first. Full stop. The company (LLC) is a means to that end. Very interested to see how this governance situation continues to change.

There's absolutely no sense in talking about OpenAI as a nonprofit at this point. The new board and Altman talk about the governance structure changing, and I strongly believe they will maximize their ability to run it as a for-profit company. 100x profit cap is a very large number on an $80 billion valuation.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#46

Post by charrondev »

kweingar wrote: post #20
bagels wrote: post #12

Is anyone feeling more comfortable about relying on OpenAI as a customer after this announcement?

Not particularly. I am still worried about their data security (considering the credit card leak in March). A new board doesn’t fix that.

If you’re concerned about the data security of OpenAI there’s always the OpenAI products served from Azure.

At $DAYJOB we are working various AI features and it was a lot easier to get Azure through our InfoSec process than OpenAI.

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#48

Post by jacquesm »

stingraycharles wrote: post #24
jacquesm wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't equate to having 'customer representation' that equates to 'Quora representation'. Customers are represented by a voice-of-the-customer board where many customers, large and small can be represented who then vote for a representative to the board. The board of the non-profit having a for-profit customer (and a large one at that) as a board member makes zero sense, that's just one more end-run around 'the…

I don’t think they necessarily owe the public an explanation, and I’m fairly sure that privately everyone that needs to know, already knows.

Actually, their statements are overflowing from bits and pieces of how they are doing this 'for all of humanity' so I'm not so sure about that. Think about it this way: if in the 1940's nuclear weapons were being developed in private hands don't you think the entity behind that would owe the public - or the government - some insight into what is going on?

Re: Sam Altman returns as CEO, OpenAI has a new initial board

#50

Post by resters »

Not to criticize Sam, but I think people don't realize that it was Greg who was the visionary behind OpenAI. Read his blog. Greg happens to be a chill, low-drama person and surely he recruited Sam because he knew he is a great communicator and exec, but it's a bit sad to see him successfully staying out of the limelight when I think he's actually the one with the rarest form of genius and grit on the team.
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