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Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

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Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#101

Post by trhway »

elzbardico wrote: post #80

Said the guy whose life mission seems to be to convert a non-profit into a for-profit entity.

look around - CA - missionaries have the best real estate. And another related note on connection between strong promotion of devotion to ideas and it is being a good business - the Abrahamic monotheism was a result of the successful marketing campaign "only the donations made here are donations to the real god" of that Temple back then against several other competing ones. (Curiously that the current historic stage of AI, on the cusp, be it 3 or 30 years, of emergence of AGI is somewhat close to that point in history back then. Thus in particular a flood of messiahs and doom sayers would only increase.)

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#102

Post by pydry »

jrm4 wrote: post #76

Big picture, I'll always believe we dodged a huge bullet in that "AI" got big in a nearly fully "open-source," maybe even "post open-source" world. The fact that Meta is, for now, one of the good guys in this space (purely strategically and unintentionally) is fortunate and almost funny.

Dont make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Mark Zuckerberg. He didnt open source anything because he's a "good guy", he's just commoditizing the complement.

The "good guy" is a competitive environment that would render Meta's AI offerings to be irrelevant right now if it didnt open source.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#103

Post by storgendibal »

blueblisters wrote: post #98
spenvo wrote: post #15

OpenAI's tight spot: 1) They are far from profitability. 2) Meta is aggressively making their top talent more expensive, and outright draining it. 3) Deepseek/Baidu/etc are dramatically undercutting them. 4) Anthropic and (to a lesser extent?) Google appear to be beating them (or, charitably, matching them) on AI's best use case so far: coding. 5) Altman is becoming less like-able with every unnecessary episode of dr…

If they can turn ChatGPT into a free cash flow machine, they will be in a much more comfortable position. They have the lever to do so (ads) but haven't shown much interest there yet. I can't imagine how they will compete if they need to continue burning and needing to raise capital until 2030.

The interest and actions are there now: Hiring Fidji Simo to run "applications" strongly indicates a move to an ad-based business model. Fidji's meteoric rise at Facebook was because she helped land the pivot to the monster business that is mobile ads on Facebook, and she was supposedly tapped as Instacart's CEO because their business potential was on ads for CPGs, more than it was on skimming delivery fees and marked up groceries.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#104

Post by beering »

thomassmith65 wrote: post #95
joshdavham wrote: post #49

I think Meta already has very deep cultural problems. If you've ever browsed teamblind.com (which I strongly recommend against as I hate that site), you'll see what the people who work at Meta are like.

Off topic, but the existence of this teamblind.com site escaped my notice till now. Is there a particular reason to hate it (aside from it being social media)?

Mainly because it brings out the worst in people. It’s easy to read Blind too much and take on a very cynical, money-driven view of everything in your life, which of course a Blind addict would justify as clear-eyed and pragmatic.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#106

Post by landl0rd »

pydry wrote: post #102
jrm4 wrote: post #76

Big picture, I'll always believe we dodged a huge bullet in that "AI" got big in a nearly fully "open-source," maybe even "post open-source" world. The fact that Meta is, for now, one of the good guys in this space (purely strategically and unintentionally) is fortunate and almost funny.

Dont make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Mark Zuckerberg. He didnt open source anything because he's a "good guy", he's just commoditizing the complement. The "good guy" is a competitive environment that would render Meta's AI offerings to be irrelevant right now if it didnt open source.

The price tag on this stuff, in human capital, data, and hardware, is high enough to preclude that sort of “perfect competition” environment.

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#108

Post by ponector »

neilv wrote: post #29

Can someone make an honest argument for how OpenAI staff are missionaries, after the coup? I'd be very happy to be convinced that supporting the coup was the right move for true-believer missionaries. (Edit: It's an honest and obvious question, and I think that the joke responses risk burying or discouraging honest answers.)

That is just an act of corpo-ceo bulshitting employees and press about high moral standards, mission, etc. Don't trust any of his words.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#109

Post by timewizard »

trhway wrote: post #101
elzbardico wrote: post #80

Said the guy whose life mission seems to be to convert a non-profit into a for-profit entity.

look around - CA - missionaries have the best real estate. And another related note on connection between strong promotion of devotion to ideas and it is being a good business - the Abrahamic monotheism was a result of the successful marketing campaign "only the donations made here are donations to the real god" of that Temple back then against several other competing ones. (Curiously that the current historic stage…

In short: "Liars prosper in the short term."

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#110

Post by noname120 »

ponector wrote: post #108
neilv wrote: post #29

Can someone make an honest argument for how OpenAI staff are missionaries, after the coup? I'd be very happy to be convinced that supporting the coup was the right move for true-believer missionaries. (Edit: It's an honest and obvious question, and I think that the joke responses risk burying or discouraging honest answers.)

That is just an act of corpo-ceo bulshitting employees and press about high moral standards, mission, etc. Don't trust any of his words.

Yes, especially not his
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