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Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

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Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#301

Post by pclmulqdq »

emodendroket wrote: post #270
siliconc0w wrote: post #248

There is a lot in here but turning a non-profit into a for-profit definitely should be challenged. Otherwise why wouldn't everyone start as a non-profit, develop your IP, and then switch to 'for-profit' mode once you got something that works? You don't pay income taxes and your investors get write offs.

They didn't "turn it into" a for-profit though, they created a separate for-profit arm. This one is unusually successful but that's not an unusual thing for even "regular" charities to do in order to engage in some activities that they wouldn't normally be able to.

They basically did, though. The nonprofit does nothing except further the interests of the for-profit company, and all employees get shares of of the for-profit company.

It's not unusual for nonprofits to have spinoffs, but it is unusual for the nonprofit to be so consumed by its for-profit spinoffs.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#302

Post by madeofpalk »

aCoreyJ wrote: post #178
laristine wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can sue for many reasons. For example, when a party breaks a contract, the other party can sue to compel the contract to be performed as agreed.

Well Elon was forced to buy Twitter that way

No, the courts never forced anything.

It was looking like he would lose and the courts would force the sale, but the case was settled without a judgement by Elon fulfilling his initial obligation of buying the website.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#303

Post by ben_w »

siliconc0w wrote: post #248

There is a lot in here but turning a non-profit into a for-profit definitely should be challenged. Otherwise why wouldn't everyone start as a non-profit, develop your IP, and then switch to 'for-profit' mode once you got something that works? You don't pay income taxes and your investors get write offs.

I'm not at all clear on what a "not for profit" status even does, tax wise. In any jurisdiction.

They are still able to actually make a profit (and quite often will, because careful balancing of perfect profit and loss is almost impossible and loss is bad), and I thought those profits were still taxed because otherwise that's too obvious as a tax dodge, it's just that profit isn't their main goal?

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#304

Post by iExploder »

Tomte wrote: post #236
jeron wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be insane if the court case ended up hinging on whether AGI had been achieved internally or not

It won‘t, that‘s pretty much a throwaway half-sentence, but it stood out to me. You throw a lot of things at the judge and see what sticks.

Could lead to juicy depositions and be subject to discovery. I wonder if Ilya makes an appearance.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#305

Post by sroussey »

alickz wrote: post #251
baking wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume you mean Exhibit 2, the email from Sam to Elon.

From: Elon Musk To: Sam Altman Subject: AI Lab Agree on all On Jun 24, 2015, at 10:24 AM, Sam Altman wrote: 1. The mission would be to create the first general Al and use ti for individual empowerment ie, the distributed version of the future that seems the safest. More generally, safety should be a first-class requirement. 2. I think we'd ideally start with a group of 7-10 people, and plan to expand from there. We h…

Wait, Peter Thiel is/was heavily involved in YC?

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#306

Post by bevekspldnw »

sema4hacker wrote: post #281

A NY Times article says "Though Mr. Musk has repeatedly criticized OpenAI for becoming a for-profit company, he hatched a plan in 2017 to wrest control of the A.I. lab from Mr. Altman and its other founders and transform into a commercial operation that would work alongside his other companies, including the electric carmaker Tesla, and make use of their increasingly powerful supercomputers, people familiar with his…

[flagged]

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#307

Post by vik0 »

kbos87 wrote: post #238
kbos87 wrote: post #160

Unsurprising turn of events. Musk can't stand not being at the top of the food chain, and it's been widely reported on that he's felt "left out" as AI has taken off while he has been consumed by the disaster he created for himself over at X - https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-ai-boom-openai-wal... I can imagine Musk losing sleep knowing that a smart, young, gay founder who refuses to show him deference is out…

Genuinely curious why I'm getting downvoted - similar comments don't appear to have met the same fate, and I'm by no means defending Altman or OpenAI. If it's because I mentioned that Altman is gay - and I can't find another reason - I think that's relevant in context of Musk's recent hard shift rightward and his consistently aggressive, unprovoked behavior toward LGBTQ people. For some reason the topic looms large i…

I think you're reading too much into it lol

I think a more likely interpretation is that a lot of people here are Musk fans, and don't like it when he gets criticized, thus downvoting your comment

I'm neither an ultra fanboy nor someone who despises him

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#308

Post by dragonwriter »

Retric wrote: post #75
breadwinner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A donor usually is only able to say how his donation will be used. For example, if you donate to Harvard University, you can say the money will be earmarked for scholarships, but you don't get a say on how the university is managed. You can at best say you will no longer donate based on how the university is managed.

A donor can sue and win in cases of fraud. Being a 501 (c) isn’t some shield that means any behavior is permitted. In this case there’s a specific agreement that’s allegedly been breached. Basically they said results of AI research would be shared openly without benefiting any specific party, and then later entered into a private agreement with Microsoft. I don’t know how binding any of this is, but I doubt this will…

> Being a 501 (c) isn’t some shield that means any behavior is permitted.

Its pretty much—especially a 501c3—the opposite, a substantial set of restrictions in behavior, on top of those which would face an organization doing similar things that was not a 501c3.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#309

Post by takinola »

siliconc0w wrote: post #248

There is a lot in here but turning a non-profit into a for-profit definitely should be challenged. Otherwise why wouldn't everyone start as a non-profit, develop your IP, and then switch to 'for-profit' mode once you got something that works? You don't pay income taxes and your investors get write offs.

It would be hard to get investors though. Non-profits can only take donations and not investment. So you would have to develop your IP using your own funds. Plus, most companies are loss making in the early years so it is actually more tax-efficient to have an entity that can recognize those losses for tax purposes and offset them against future losses.

Re: Elon Musk sues Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, and OpenAI [pdf]

#310

Post by emodendroket »

lumost wrote: post #298
emodendroket wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't "turn it into" a for-profit though, they created a separate for-profit arm. This one is unusually successful but that's not an unusual thing for even "regular" charities to do in order to engage in some activities that they wouldn't normally be able to.

Perhaps the regular charity version of this should also be challenged. This case looks somewhat egregious as the for profit arm was able to fire the board of the non-profit parent. Likewise, openAI is selling "PPU" units, it's entirely unclear if anybody knows what these actually are. It's highly likely in my uneducated opinion that OpenAI will be told to adopt a standard corporate structure in the near term. They wi…

I don't think that's very likely at all! But I suppose we'll see.

For a good point of comparison, until 2015, when public scrutiny led them to decide to change it, the NFL operated as a nonprofit, with the teams operating as for-profits. Other sports leagues continue to have that structure.

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