Live data from Hacker News

OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

vox.com

461–470 of 1001 posts

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#461

So part of their compensation for working is equity, and when they leave thay have to sign an additional agreement in order to keep their previously earned compensation? How is this legal? Mine as well tell them they have to give all their money back too. What's the consideration for this contract?

The thing is that this is a private company, so there is no public market to provide liquidity. The company can make itself the sole source of liquidity, at its option, by placing sell restrictions on the grants. Toe the line, or you will find you never get to participate in a liquidity event.

There's more info on how SpaceX uses a scheme like this[0] to force compliance, and seeing as Musk had a hand in creating both orgs, they're bound to be similar.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/15/spacex-employee-stock-sale...

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#462
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That OpenAI are institutionally unethical. That such a young company can be become rotten so quickly can only be due to leadership instruction or leadership failure.

Look at Sam Altman's career and tweets. He's a clown at best, and at worst he's a manipulative crook who only cares about his own enrichment and uses pro-social ideas to give himself a veneer of trustworthiness.

Indeed. I’ve heard first hand accounts that would make it impossible for me to trust him. He’s very good at the game. But I’d not want to touch him with a barge pole.

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#464
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That OpenAI are institutionally unethical. That such a young company can be become rotten so quickly can only be due to leadership instruction or leadership failure.

Look at Sam Altman's career and tweets. He's a clown at best, and at worst he's a manipulative crook who only cares about his own enrichment and uses pro-social ideas to give himself a veneer of trustworthiness.

the name OpenAI itself reminds me every day of this.

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My US history teacher taught me something important. He said that if you are going to steal and don't want to get in trouble, steal a whole lot.

Copying one person is plagarism. Copying lots of people is research.

True, but if you research lots of sources and still emit significant blocks of verbatim text without attribution, it’s still plagiarism. At least that’s how human authors are judged.

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#466
post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That OpenAI are institutionally unethical. That such a young company can be become rotten so quickly can only be due to leadership instruction or leadership failure.

Look at Sam Altman's career and tweets. He's a clown at best, and at worst he's a manipulative crook who only cares about his own enrichment and uses pro-social ideas to give himself a veneer of trustworthiness.

The startup world (as the artistic world, the sports world, etc) values healthy transgression of the rules

But the line between healthy and unlawful transgression can be a thin line

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#467
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I have equity in a company and I care about its value, I’m not going to say anything to tank its value. If I sell my equity later on, and then disparage the company, what can OpenAI hope to do to me?

From what other people have commented, you don't get equity. You get a profit sharing plan. You're chained to them for life. There is no divestiture.

Here's something I just don't understand. I have a profit sharing plan *for life*, and yet I want to publicly thrash it so that the benefits I can derive from it is reduced, all in the name of some form of ... what, social service?

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#468
post #37

Extra respect is due to Jan Leike, then: https://x.com/janleike/status/1791498174659715494

Reading that thread it’s really interesting to me. I see how far we’ve come in a short couple of years. But I still can’t grasp how we’ll achieve AGI within any reasonable amount of time. It just seems like we’re missing some really critical… something… Idk. Folks much smarter than I seem worried so maybe I should be too but it just seems like such a long shot.

> But I still can’t grasp how we’ll achieve AGI within any reasonable amount of time.

That's easy, we just need to make meatspace people stupider. Seems to be working great so far.

Re: OpenAI departures: Why can’t former employees talk?

#470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many sources do you need to steal from for it to no longer be considered stealing? Two? Three? A hundred?

Copyright infringement is not stealing.

True.

Making people believe that anything but their own body and mind can be considered part of their own properties is stealing their lucidity.

Post reply on HN