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Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

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Re: Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

#421

Post by sheepscreek »

Imnimo wrote: post #7

It is hard for me to square "This company is a few short years away from building world-changing AGI" and "I'm stepping away to do my own thing". Maybe I'm just bad at putting myself in someone else's shoes, but I feel like if I had spent years working towards a vision of AGI, and thought that success was finally just around the corner, it'd be very difficult to walk away.

Another theory: it’s possibly related to a change of heart at OpenAI to become a for-profit company. It is rumoured Altman’s gunning for a 7% stake in the for-profit entity. That would be very substantial at a $150B valuation.

Squeezing out senior execs could be a way for him to maximize his claim on the stake. Notwithstanding, the execs may have disagreed with the shift in culture.

Re: Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

#422

Post by PoignardAzur »

vasco wrote: post #205
jsheard wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is hard for me to square "This company is a few short years away from building world-changing AGI" Altmans quote was that "it's possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days", which sounds a lot more optimistic on the surface than it actually is. A few thousand days could be interpreted as 10 years or more, and by adding the "possibly" qualifier he didn't even really commit to that predicti…

OpenAI is a Microsoft play to get into power generation business, specifically nuclear, which is a pet interest of Bill Gates for many years. There, that's my conspiracy theory quota for 2024 in one comment.

It's kinda cool as a conspiracy theory. It's just reasonable enough if you don't know any of the specifics. And the incentives mostly make sense, if you don't look too closely.

Re: Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

#423

Post by piuantiderp »

paxys wrote: post #72
Imnimo wrote: post #7

It is hard for me to square "This company is a few short years away from building world-changing AGI" and "I'm stepping away to do my own thing". Maybe I'm just bad at putting myself in someone else's shoes, but I feel like if I had spent years working towards a vision of AGI, and thought that success was finally just around the corner, it'd be very difficult to walk away.

Regardless of where AI currently is and where it is going, you don't simply quit as CTO of the company that is leading the space by far in terms of technology, products, funding, revenue, popularity, adoption and just about everything else. She was fired, plain and simple.

Or you are disgusted and leave. Are there things more important than money? You'd certainly be certain the OpenAI founders sold themselves as, not'in'it'for'the money.

Re: Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

#424

Post by [deleted] »

vagab0nd wrote: post #412
TheAlchemist wrote: post #336

Similar to when Andrei Karpathy left Tesla. Tesla was on the verge of 'solving FSD' and unlocking trillions of $ of revenue (and mind you, this was already 3 years after the CEO said that they will have 1 million robotaxis on the road by the year's end). Guess what ? Tesla is still on the verge of 'solving FSD'. And most probably it will be in the same place for the next 10 years. The writing is on the wall for OpenA…

I follow the latest updates to FSD and it's clear to me that they are getting closer to robotaxis really fast.

[deleted]

Re: Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

#425

Post by piuantiderp »

tomrod wrote: post #53
Imnimo wrote: post #7

It is hard for me to square "This company is a few short years away from building world-changing AGI" and "I'm stepping away to do my own thing". Maybe I'm just bad at putting myself in someone else's shoes, but I feel like if I had spent years working towards a vision of AGI, and thought that success was finally just around the corner, it'd be very difficult to walk away.

My take is that Altman recognizes LLM winter is coming and is trying to entrench.

A cash out

Re: Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

#426

Post by PoignardAzur »

golergka wrote: post #33
Imnimo wrote: post #7

It is hard for me to square "This company is a few short years away from building world-changing AGI" and "I'm stepping away to do my own thing". Maybe I'm just bad at putting myself in someone else's shoes, but I feel like if I had spent years working towards a vision of AGI, and thought that success was finally just around the corner, it'd be very difficult to walk away.

Among other perfectly reasonable theories mentioned here, people burn out.

Yeah, if she wasn't deniably fired, then burnout is what Ockham's Razor leaves.

Re: Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

#427

Post by Earw0rm »

cedws wrote: post #270
FactKnower69 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

McKinsey MBA brain rot seeping into all levels of culture

That's giving too much credit to McKinsey. I'd argue it's systemic brainrot. Never admit mistakes, never express yourself, never be honest. Just make up as much bullshit as possible on the fly, say whatever you have to pacify people. Even just say bullshit 24/7. Not to dunk on Mira Murati, because this note is pretty cookie cutter, but it exemplifies this perfectly. It says nothing about her motivations for resigning…

It's a management culture which is almost colonial in nature, and seeks to differentiate itself from a "labor class" which is already highly educated.

Never spook the horses. Never show the team, or the public, what's going on behind the curtain.. or even that there is anything going on. At all time present the appearance of a swan gliding serenely across a lake.

Because if you show humanity, those other humans might cotton on to the fact that you're not much different to them, and have done little to earn or justify your position of authority.

And that wouldn't do at all.

Re: Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

#428

Post by ssnistfajen »

deepGem wrote: post #112
aresant wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the much more likely scenario than product roadmap concerns is that Murati (and Ilya for that matter) took their shot to remove Sam, lost, and in an effort to collectively retain billion$ of enterprise value have been playing nice, but were never seriously going to work together again after the failed coup.

Why is it so hard to just accept this and be transparent about motives ? It's fair to say 'we were not aligned with Sam, we tried an ouster, didn't pan out so the best thing for us to do is to leave and let Sam pursue his path", which the entirely company has vouched for. Instead, you get to see grey area after grey area.

People, including East Asians, frequently claim "face" is an East Asian cultural concept despite the fact that it is omnipresent in all cultures. It doesn't matter if outsiders have figured out what's actually going on. The only thing that matters is saving face.

Re: Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

#429

Post by [deleted] »

vasco wrote: post #205
jsheard wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is hard for me to square "This company is a few short years away from building world-changing AGI" Altmans quote was that "it's possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days", which sounds a lot more optimistic on the surface than it actually is. A few thousand days could be interpreted as 10 years or more, and by adding the "possibly" qualifier he didn't even really commit to that predicti…

OpenAI is a Microsoft play to get into power generation business, specifically nuclear, which is a pet interest of Bill Gates for many years. There, that's my conspiracy theory quota for 2024 in one comment.

[deleted]

Re: Mira Murati leaves OpenAI

#430

Post by csomar »

zooq_ai wrote: post #374
KoftaBob wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was the CTO, how does she not have STEM credibility?

Sometimes with good looks and charm, you can fall up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira_Murati Point me to a single credential where you feel confident of putting your money on her?

She studied math early on, so she's definitively technical. She is the CTO, so she kinda needs to balance the managerial while having enough understanding of the underlying technical.
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