So long "Open" AI, this screams more push to turn a profit. Maybe had they hired leaders in the scientific fields it would read differently, but a cash flow perp and a top tier product owner? (tho instagram? woof don't count that as a win except a win for greed).
OpenAI Welcomes Sarah Friar (CFO) and Kevin Weil (CPO)
71–80 of 94 posts
Re: OpenAI Welcomes Sarah Friar (CFO) and Kevin Weil (CPO)
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nextdoor shares don't look like they did too well under her management.
She was an awful CEO; she was basically a CFO hired to shepherd the company through the IPO (SPAC) process, but the years following were awful. I left right before the board fired her (along with many, many senior people) and hope the company is doing better without her there. Not surprised to see her failing upward.
If your complaint is that she was a fine CFO but a terrible CEO then i can hardly see her going back to a CFO role as failing upwards.
Re: OpenAI Welcomes Sarah Friar (CFO) and Kevin Weil (CPO)
#73Re: OpenAI Welcomes Sarah Friar (CFO) and Kevin Weil (CPO)
#74I'm amazed they were able to pull from Planet. As impressive as OpenAI is, Planet is such a stellar company with the right mix of good intentions/impact and profitable product market fit that it's hard to imagine a better place to work right now. That said, maybe Planet's success made it less attractive to someone looking to take on new and monumental challenges.
Re: OpenAI Welcomes Sarah Friar (CFO) and Kevin Weil (CPO)
#75Re: OpenAI Welcomes Sarah Friar (CFO) and Kevin Weil (CPO)
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think anyone in an executive position cares about the Her "debate". It's Twitter-level gossip.
Yeah, they don't care so much that there were direct follow ups to the up roar
Sure. Sam and other executives probably took an hour of their time to decide what they would write in the blog post to appease the critics (which is par for the course for any public-facing company as widely known as OpenAI †), and then maybe another hour meeting with their lawyers to prepare in case of a suit, three weeks ago.
But in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's in their top 15 priorities. People here talk as if the Her thing was almost an existential threat to Altman's leadership.
† See Apple's recent apology for their ad. Do you think Tim Cook or his executives lose sleep because of the backlash? https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/09/tech/apple-apologizes-for...
Re: OpenAI Welcomes Sarah Friar (CFO) and Kevin Weil (CPO)
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
She was an awful CEO; she was basically a CFO hired to shepherd the company through the IPO (SPAC) process, but the years following were awful. I left right before the board fired her (along with many, many senior people) and hope the company is doing better without her there. Not surprised to see her failing upward.
If your complaint is that she was a fine CFO but a terrible CEO then i can hardly see her going back to a CFO role as failing upwards.
> If your complaint is that she was a fine CFO but a terrible CEO then i can hardly see her going back to a CFO role as failing upwards
Failing upwards would be her announcing she's raised money for a new start-up at which she will be CEO. (EDIT: To be clear, I'm agreeing with you.)
Instead, she's going back to where she has a track record. It would be like Musk selling Twitter. Or David Marcus going back to 2001 [1].
Re: OpenAI Welcomes Sarah Friar (CFO) and Kevin Weil (CPO)
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, they don't care so much that there were direct follow ups to the up roar
Sure. Sam and other executives probably took an hour of their time to decide what they would write in the blog post to appease the critics (which is par for the course for any public-facing company as widely known as OpenAI †), and then maybe another hour meeting with their lawyers to prepare in case of a suit, three weeks ago. But in the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's in their top 15 priorities. People h…
I don't think losing sleep is a requirement. However, you know that the next time an ad is going to be release, it will be in people's minds of what backlash might happen from this before it gets green lit. At least, one would hope that would be the take away.
Re: OpenAI Welcomes Sarah Friar (CFO) and Kevin Weil (CPO)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nextdoor shares don't look like they did too well under her management.
I don't think she's someone to be admired. Being ceo of an app that is IMO rife with bigotry, xenophobia, and scare mongering.
> an app that is IMO rife with bigotry, xenophobia, and scare mongering
I don't use it a lot. But my Nextdoor is basically pictures of animal sightings, pictures of pets who got out and pictures, a few hours later, of them being found.
Re: OpenAI Welcomes Sarah Friar (CFO) and Kevin Weil (CPO)
#80But if you actually believe they'll be super AI in a year or two, why even bother with a product till then? Seems like the only focus should be getting there first. Unless of course you don't actually believe that.
They've disbanded their superlignment group, and their staff who were able to work on the problem more deeply (STEM people) have since quit, see https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=8047 (N.b. in the ex-employee author's pdf article mentioned above, a page dedicates his pdf to Ilya, who is also out of the company, so in context it's a pointed statement writing that dedication IMO)
> disbanded their superlignment group
They were, for all practical purposes, acquired. The alignment group served its role in underligning that OpenAI was building Really Serious Stuff. There's no marginal benefit to having them around at this point, given their PR purpose has been fulfilled.