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OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

businessinsider.com

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Re: OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

#181

Post by scarface_74 »

valine wrote: post #24
Laaas wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't miss the cloud revolution, and certainly not the AI revolution either. Microsoft is doing absolutely great under Satya Nadella.

That’s more down to dumb luck partnering with OpenAI. You have a point with the cloud computing. I’d hesitate to call it a revolution though. I’d never willingly use a microsoft cloud product if I wasn’t forced to by my employer.

And until you get into a position where you can control the direction of a large corporation it doesn’t matter. Microsoft doesn’t care about the random idealistic developer?

Re: OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

#182

Post by zlg_codes »

scarface_74 wrote: post #179
zlg_codes wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird, Microsoft's been invisible to me since the early 2000s. I don't think they could sell me anything. Their whole corporate image is just slimy. Like that one friend that wants you to set up an account on something he's got going, or wants you to join him on an investment. You can totally trust him. You'll have a site, some cloud storage, office software, the works. And the investment? Yeah dude it'll rocket any…

Because a company that is “invisible” to a random person on HN that has been one of the most valuable companies in the world for over 20 years and still sells the operating system powering most of the worlds personal computers, 2nd largest cloud provider, and is embedded deeply in most large enterprises and government, it should mean what exactly?

Because it's not just me. I'm just the only one in this thread. HN is not the entire world.

Re: OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

#183

Post by scarface_74 »

chimeracoder wrote: post #28
valine wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds about right to me. They missed the entire smartphone revolution because they were too slow to adapt their OS (literally their main product) to run on mobile devices.

> Sounds about right to me. They missed the entire smartphone revolution because they were too slow to adapt their OS (literally their main product) to run on mobile devices. Remember the whole antitrust thing? Microsoft was under a consent decree that expired between 2007-2009 (different provisions expired at different times). That decree, combined with the material threat of additional action during that time windo…

This is completely untrue. Microsoft very much had a mobile phone operating system way before 2007 and before the iPhone.

It was simply a failure of execution. Can you point to one thing in the consent decree that stopped them from competing better in mobile?

Re: OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

#184

Post by ponector »

aetherson wrote: post #142
ponector wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that with new rounds and new valuation there is also a dilution of shares. If the valuation goes up x10 after next round average developer probably will have the same money locked in rsu/options.

Uh, what? Are you claiming that if a company experiences a 10x (!) increase in valuation, that the dilution fully destroys that upside and the average developer experiences no increase in their comp? That is not even vaguely close to true in my experience.

I'm sure Sam's cut will go up x10. But there are many ways to screw options of the regular employees.

I'm not talking about key people, about first 50 employees, etc. Regular people.

Re: OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

#185

Post by phillipcarter »

simplypeter wrote: post #112

Why would OpenAI employees want to jump ship to Microsoft, especially when Microsoft's been slashing jobs and freezing pay? Doesn't really add up for me.

Being the CEO's pet AI lab is one of the best positions to be in, as it's actually the rare combination of being able to do innovative work but getting all the resources of big tech to do it. Satya is no muppet; he knows that if he were to absorb them he'd have to keep anyone from messing with them. They would be the most protected class of employee at MSFT.

The main reason why you'd not want to do it is that Startup Funny Money stock options won't be as high as they might be if you'd stay independent.

Re: OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

#186

Post by scarface_74 »

zer00eyz wrote: post #105
the__prestige wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA talks about a tender offer, which allows employees to sell their shares at almost a 3x valuation compared to earlier this year. This already is a "massive pay day".

The only time that 3x trade would be a good deal is if you think that's the best you're going to do. IF you think your gonna be the next amazon/Facebook/google then selling is foolish. The MS deal may limit or wreck that possibility.

In what world do you see OpenAI’s +technology* being behind massively profitable products? What is their most?

Re: OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

#187

Post by scarface_74 »

jandrese wrote: post #37
soulbadguy wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the deal was for employee to keep their OpenAI compensation even after moving to MSFT

Even if they did you know the annual performance review would go something like: "You did a great job this year and met or exceeded all of the metrics we measured, but your compa ratio is just too high so instead of a raise we are going to give you a lump sum instead." Big company culture vs. startup culture is a known issue. People choose to work for startups to avoid that big company culture, so if a big company bu…

How is that culture at OpenAi working out?

Re: OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

#188

Post by lumost »

scarface_74 wrote: post #167
mrtksn wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously MS does some great things but I wonder what do you think about their culture? MS is trying to make me use Edge Browser by randomly refusing to let me use Bing chat in any other browser. This makes me think that MS is still evil and will force me to do things the moment they can. I gave up Bing Chat because of this and was using Perplexity.ai instead, until Bing got integrated into ChatGPT. Another thing is…

Open AI doesn’t have any meaningful “products” they have good technology and they charge $20 a month for a subscription to a technology demo that doesn’t come close to covering their costs. You think the employees at “Open” AI care about anything more than their large paychecks no matter what they say?

I’d be curious if $20/mo is or is not enough to cover their costs. It’s opaque what their inference setup is, or what the final economics of LLMs will be. With 30-100 Billion param models becoming available which are in spitting distance of gpt-4, and dedicated ASIC implementations… openAI might be charging too much.

Re: OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

#189

Post by MicolashKyoka »

Anything from business insider should be taken with a mountain of salt. The msft deal would've created a separate org for openai, sorta like how linkedin & github are operated. So much of the context disappears when you view things through the lens of someone not familiar with the domain.

Re: OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft

#190

Post by scarface_74 »

zlg_codes wrote: post #182
scarface_74 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a company that is “invisible” to a random person on HN that has been one of the most valuable companies in the world for over 20 years and still sells the operating system powering most of the worlds personal computers, 2nd largest cloud provider, and is embedded deeply in most large enterprises and government, it should mean what exactly?

Because it's not just me. I'm just the only one in this thread. HN is not the entire world.

Considering Microsoft’s and the rest of BigTech revenue and market share in their areas, it doesn’t seem like enough people of importance share your opinions to matter.
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