Live data from Hacker News

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

courthousenews.com

481–490 of 1001 posts

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

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - Had you donated the funds as "restricted funding" in the nonprofit parlance, they would have a legal requirement to use the funds as you had designated. It seems that Musk contributed general non-restricted funding so the nonprofit can more or less do what they want with the money.. Not saying there's no case here, but if he really wanted them to do something specific, there's a path for that to happen and tha…

> Musk contributed general non-restricted funding so the nonprofit can more or less do what they want with the money. Seems like "more or less" is doing a lot of work in this statement. I suppose this is what the legal system is for, to settle the dispute within the "more or less" grey area. I would wager this will get settled out of court. But if it makes it all the way to judgement then I will be interested to see…

Yeah, much of it will turn on what was explicitly agreed to and what the funds were actually used for -- but people have the wrong idea about nonprofits in general, OpenAI's mission is incredibly broad so they can do a whole universe of things to advance that mission including investing or founding for-profit companies.

"Nonprofit" is just a tax and wind-down designation (the assets in the nonprofit can't be distributed to insiders) - otherwise they operate as run-of-the-mill companies with slightly more disclosure required. Notice the OpenAI nonprofit is just "OpenAI, Inc." -- Musk's suit is akin to an investor writing a check to a robot startup and then suing them if they pivot to AI -- maybe not what he intended but there are other levers to exercise control, except it's even further afield and more like a grant to a startup since nobody can "own" a nonprofit.

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

#483
post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, OpenAI basically grafted a for-profit entity onto the non-profit to bypass their entire mission. They’re now extremely closed AI, and are valued at $80+ billion. If I donated millions to them, I’d be furious.

> and are valued at $80+ billion. If I donated millions to them, I’d be furious. Don't get mad; convince the courts to divide most of the nonprofit-turned-for-profit company equity amongst the donors-turned-investors, and enjoy your new billions of dollars.

The for-profit arm is what's valued at $80B not the non-profit arm that Elon donated to. If any of this sounds confusing to you, that's because it is.

Hopefully the courts can untangle this mess.

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

#485

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]

#486
post #210

> GPT-4 is an AGI algorithm That claim is audacious.

I mean, I definitely disagree with the statement that GPT-4 is an AGI, but OpenAI themselves define an AGI in their charter as an AI that is better than the median human at most economically valuable work. Even when taking that into consideration I don't consider GPT-4 to be an AGI, but you can see how someone might make attempt to make a convincing argument. Personally though, I think this definition of AGI sets the…

My software engineer job officially says I need to be able to life up to 50 lbs but it seems unlikely that this is actually necessary in practice.

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

#487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand how taxes work. Unprofitable businesses of every sort don't pay income taxes. Startups like OpenAI don't pay income taxes because they don't have income. And investors don't get a writeoff merely for investing in a nonprofit; it's not like a donation to a nonprofit (which would be deductable).

> Startups like OpenAI don't pay income taxes because they don't have income. Where is my $20/month for GPT-4 going then?

To pay their expenses and salaries.

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

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand how taxes work. Unprofitable businesses of every sort don't pay income taxes. Startups like OpenAI don't pay income taxes because they don't have income. And investors don't get a writeoff merely for investing in a nonprofit; it's not like a donation to a nonprofit (which would be deductable).

This is a great point but has me realizing I don't know how to square this with the idea that quite a few people are making enormous profits from unprofitable businesses. It feels like there should be a way to tax these startups that exist as vehicles for cash grabs, but are not profitable.

The individuals will get taxed on capital gains afaik. We could also tax unrealized gains (just like we do gains on property)!

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

#489
post #180

Wouldn't you have to prove damages in a lawsuit like this? What damages does Musk personally suffer if OpenAI has in fact broken their contract?

The statement of claims is full of damages. It claims that Musk donated 44 million dollars on the basis of specific claims made by the plaintiffs as well as the leasing of office space and some other contributions Musk made.

it sounds like small amount in grand scheme of things..

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

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You misunderstand how taxes work. Unprofitable businesses of every sort don't pay income taxes. Startups like OpenAI don't pay income taxes because they don't have income. And investors don't get a writeoff merely for investing in a nonprofit; it's not like a donation to a nonprofit (which would be deductable).

> Startups like OpenAI don't pay income taxes because they don't have income. Where is my $20/month for GPT-4 going then?

Taxes are payed on net income not on individual transactions (barring sales tax).

If I make $100 in a year and spend $1000 that year, my income is ($900). How can I spend $1000? Generally through loans and bonds. How do I secure said loans? Generally simply by showing how much VC and income comes in with a business plan that banks accept.

But that's the secret to the money flow. That's also partially why the collapse of SVB was such a blow to the tech industry. A LOT of loans were issued by them.

Post reply on HN