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

OpenAI removes Sam Altman's ownership of its Startup Fund

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 48 posts

Re: OpenAI removes Sam Altman's ownership of its Startup Fund

#31

Post by lgregg »

yieldcrv wrote: post #18
propter_hoc wrote: post #7

I'm not a lawyer, but I've been involved in a fair bit of venture fund formation. A fund is not an incorporated entity, but rather a partnership of two persons. In a limited partnership, one of those persons is the general partner and does all the work and assumes the related liability, and the rest are "limited partners" who just commit capital. Banks and tax authorities only open accounts for actually-formed partne…

None of this makes sense in a Master-Feeder model, as the master fund is a partnership between the feeder funds, one US, one offshore for foreign investors The general partner is not an owner they are a manager. The general partner doesnt have to be a human either it can be another entity or multiple entities all of this can be hotswapped Even in a mini-master models or single US entity model, LPs are the owners, GP…

Where can you go to learn more about these entity / LP / LLP setups that finance orgs use?

Re: OpenAI removes Sam Altman's ownership of its Startup Fund

#33

Post by nongaap »

notahacker wrote: post #24
throwawaybanjo1 wrote: post #5

There's more to this story. https://www.nongaap.com/p/openai-startup-fund-gp-hallucinati...

There's... a lot of other stuff that turns up on Google, including GPT chatbots associated with "Vespers Inc" that claim to help people with online filing, name overlaps with people who had genuine court cases filed against them in California several years ago, a defunct and obviously spammy Vespers Inc LinkedIn AI and Cybersecurity profile, and a Github profile of a "Governmental Forensic Fraud Investigator that sha…

Hi, author of "GP Hallucination" here.

I think the linked interpretation is very, very reasonable and it's a big reason why I tried to deemphasize all the "stuff" you've highlighted in my piece.

I think most of us would agree the person in question - if they're real - is exhibiting signs of a mental health crisis.

That said, I wouldn't have written the piece if I felt the aforementioned interpretation was the primary explanation to everything I'm seeing in the disclosures. I proactively tried as I went through the disclosures.

The issue I'm having is - regardless of what this person is able to concoct with ChatGPT or other methods - they shouldn't have been able to insert themselves and their Vespers "creation" into OpenAI Startup Fund I GP LLC's CA filings even if they wanted to.

One could argue they either needed to "hack" into the CA filing to insert themselves as Manager/CEO or someone at OpenAI allowed it happen (knowingly or unknowingly is tbd).

It also doesn't help OpenAI won't explain 1) how it happened, 2) why it took so long to catch it, and 3) why it wasn't reported to regulators once discovered:

"[OpenAI] declined to elaborate on how exactly fabricated documents came to be filed with the state of California."

I recognize this sounds a bit conspiratorial, but there are elements (I didn't cover) to this person's filings involving OAI that looks very thoughtful/intentional and are hard to dismiss as random/coincidental/hallucinated actions of someone that likely needs help.

And OAI's "response" didn't help address the actual issues I'm seeing.

Re: OpenAI removes Sam Altman's ownership of its Startup Fund

#34

Post by nicklecompte »

DalasNoin wrote: post #30
throwawaybanjo1 wrote: post #5

There's more to this story. https://www.nongaap.com/p/openai-startup-fund-gp-hallucinati...

I feel like this is more interesting than the original post. Though I am not sure what I am supposed to make out of this: is it 1. shady operations using fake identities with their signatures or 2. an early example of OAI trying to use AI for making money through investments? I lean towards the first one. I mean maybe there is an explanation which makes this seem more reasonable. Do people create boards with fake dir…

The Substack was badly written, and it took me a long time to figure out what their point was. And I might be wrong! I got lost in the purple prose.

Regardless of how shady OpenAI's aims may have been, I genuinely think the root cause of this is that someone at OpenAI foolishly used ChatGPT to automate boring tax paperwork. ChatGPT decided "John Q Vesper" or whatever was a statistically plausible name for the CEO, and this dumb mistake wasn't caught by a human because nobody wants to read tax paperwork if they think a magical talking robot is capable of what seems like a routine task. I am assuming OpenAI didn't intend to tell a ridiculous and easily falsifiable lie in its tax filings (especially if that lie contradicted their public explanations about Altman's management of the fund!). OpenAI probably wanted the paperwork to say "Sam Altman."

FWIW the IRS is generally forgiving of good-faith tax errors, but I would suspect "we spent so long lying about our chatbot that we ourselves forgot that it's dumber than a pigeon and doesn't actually understand human language" doesn't count. Considering how many two-bit lawyers got in significant legal trouble for relying on ChatGPT hallucinations, it would be outrageous if OpenAI manages to get off scot-free here.

Re: OpenAI removes Sam Altman's ownership of its Startup Fund

#35

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

yieldcrv wrote: post #18
propter_hoc wrote: post #7

I'm not a lawyer, but I've been involved in a fair bit of venture fund formation. A fund is not an incorporated entity, but rather a partnership of two persons. In a limited partnership, one of those persons is the general partner and does all the work and assumes the related liability, and the rest are "limited partners" who just commit capital. Banks and tax authorities only open accounts for actually-formed partne…

None of this makes sense in a Master-Feeder model, as the master fund is a partnership between the feeder funds, one US, one offshore for foreign investors The general partner is not an owner they are a manager. The general partner doesnt have to be a human either it can be another entity or multiple entities all of this can be hotswapped Even in a mini-master models or single US entity model, LPs are the owners, GP…

I suppose you caveated your statement well , by starting your writeup with "master-feeder" setups. However in a vanilla fund, your description does not apply.

In a vanilla fund, the GP is another partner and has "ownership" just like LPs do. Its just traditionally very insignificant.

The GP is simply a special partner as outlined in the LPA. They vote etc just like other LPs in major matters. They make minor decisions for the partnership. This is why usually that means the GP is the managing member.

Ive described the traditional VC fund.

No need to make it more complex with a master-feeder structure. Or a secondary, etc

Re: OpenAI removes Sam Altman's ownership of its Startup Fund

#36

Post by d0odk »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #35
yieldcrv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this makes sense in a Master-Feeder model, as the master fund is a partnership between the feeder funds, one US, one offshore for foreign investors The general partner is not an owner they are a manager. The general partner doesnt have to be a human either it can be another entity or multiple entities all of this can be hotswapped Even in a mini-master models or single US entity model, LPs are the owners, GP…

I suppose you caveated your statement well , by starting your writeup with "master-feeder" setups. However in a vanilla fund, your description does not apply. In a vanilla fund, the GP is another partner and has "ownership" just like LPs do. Its just traditionally very insignificant. The GP is simply a special partner as outlined in the LPA. They vote etc just like other LPs in major matters. They make minor decision…

The gp gets carry

Re: OpenAI removes Sam Altman's ownership of its Startup Fund

#38

Post by jbc1 »

nongaap wrote: post #33
notahacker wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's... a lot of other stuff that turns up on Google, including GPT chatbots associated with "Vespers Inc" that claim to help people with online filing, name overlaps with people who had genuine court cases filed against them in California several years ago, a defunct and obviously spammy Vespers Inc LinkedIn AI and Cybersecurity profile, and a Github profile of a "Governmental Forensic Fraud Investigator that sha…

Hi, author of "GP Hallucination" here. I think the linked interpretation is very, very reasonable and it's a big reason why I tried to deemphasize all the "stuff" you've highlighted in my piece. I think most of us would agree the person in question - if they're real - is exhibiting signs of a mental health crisis. That said, I wouldn't have written the piece if I felt the aforementioned interpretation was the primary…

Why have you not covered the elements that make it look very thoughtful/intentional?

Re: OpenAI removes Sam Altman's ownership of its Startup Fund

#40

Post by notahacker »

nongaap wrote: post #33
notahacker wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's... a lot of other stuff that turns up on Google, including GPT chatbots associated with "Vespers Inc" that claim to help people with online filing, name overlaps with people who had genuine court cases filed against them in California several years ago, a defunct and obviously spammy Vespers Inc LinkedIn AI and Cybersecurity profile, and a Github profile of a "Governmental Forensic Fraud Investigator that sha…

Hi, author of "GP Hallucination" here. I think the linked interpretation is very, very reasonable and it's a big reason why I tried to deemphasize all the "stuff" you've highlighted in my piece. I think most of us would agree the person in question - if they're real - is exhibiting signs of a mental health crisis. That said, I wouldn't have written the piece if I felt the aforementioned interpretation was the primary…

Whilst I guess it's not entirely impossible that someone would become obsessed with OpenAI, GPT, online filing, fraud and espionage after OpenAI had accidentally attributed ownership of its venture capital fund to a shell company registered in his existing multiple aliases on the same day, I think Ockham's razor suggests the story fits better the other way round.

(I'm not sure what the security processes for online filings are, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone sufficiently motivated and ambivalent about it being a felony could provide the necessary fake documentation, social engineering and/or brute force hacking to get their registered business given a notional role in someone else's unrelated business on a nonbinding document, at least until the other business noted and corrected the record. I know GPT "hallucinates" real names, but picking the existing aliases of the sort of person most likely to go down those rabbit holes seems quite the coincidence. And it'd have been odder if OpenAI's response was anything other than a generic spokesperson denial)

Post reply on HN