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Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

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Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#111

Post by gpt5 »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #39

I think people underestimate how much of a company’s value is in their key leadership, select talent, and technology. When a company is acquired those are typically the reasons to do so other than pure revenue acquisition. Microsoft already has their technology, now has the key leadership, and will soon have the select talent. Satya wins, OpenAI is walking dead.

> When a company is acquired those are typically the reasons to do so other than pure revenue acquisition

Large companies are primarily purchased for their moats

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#112

Post by vidarh »

jakey_bakey wrote: post #38
eddtries wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Sam thinks OpenAI will be so important he has a shot at CEO of Microsoft in a couple years?

But Satya is making a few 100 mil a year, tops. Sam could easily make himself a billionaire with one raise. And who wants to control all of Microsoft, that's a whole lot of headaches

According to [1], Nadella's base salary was $2.5m and stock awards and other compensation brought the total to ~$55m in 2022.

[1] https://microsoft.gcs-web.com/node/31056/html

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#113

Post by tsunamifury »

jakey_bakey wrote: post #38
eddtries wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Sam thinks OpenAI will be so important he has a shot at CEO of Microsoft in a couple years?

But Satya is making a few 100 mil a year, tops. Sam could easily make himself a billionaire with one raise. And who wants to control all of Microsoft, that's a whole lot of headaches

Sam already is a billionaire

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#116

Post by soumyadeb »

waihtis wrote: post #8

Anyone else find it strange that startup founders of the magnitude of Sam & Greg would join a gigantic corporation as employees? It sounds very out of line of what you'd expect.

Seems like a good compromise?

OpenAI continues to develop core AI offered over API. Microsoft builds the developer ecosystem around it -- that's Sam's expertise anyway. Microsoft has made a bunch of investment in the developer ecosystem in GitHub and that fits the theme. Assuming Sam sticks around.

Also, the way the tweet is worded (looking forward to working with OpenAI), seems like its a truce negotiated by Satya?

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#117

Post by kjksf »

waihtis wrote: post #8

Anyone else find it strange that startup founders of the magnitude of Sam & Greg would join a gigantic corporation as employees? It sounds very out of line of what you'd expect.

Their alternative is to start a new AI company.

At this point in time a new AI company would be bottle-necked by lack of NVIDIA GPUs. They are sold out for the medium term future.

So if Sam and Greg were to start a new AI company, even with billions of initial capital (very likely given their street cred) they would spend at a minimum several months just acquiring the hardware needed to compete with OpenAI.

With Microsoft they have the hardware from day one and unlimited capital.

At the same time their competitor, OpenAI, gets most of the money from Microsoft (a deal negotiated by Sam, BTW).

So Microsoft decided to compete with OpenAI.

This is the worst possible outcome for OpenAI: they loose talent, pretty much loose their main source of cash (not today but medium to long term) and get cash rich and GPU-rich competitor who's now their main customer.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#118

Post by impulser_ »

I'm guessing this is the end of OpenAI. People aren't going to want to work at OpenAI anymore due to the value destruction that just occurred. It's going to be hard for them to raise money now because of the bad rep they have now. It going to be hard for them to hire top talent. You have two leaders, top engineers and researchers leaving the company. Google and Facebook come in a grab up any top talent that still there because they can offer them money and equity.

The company will probably still exist, but the company isn't going to be worth what it is today.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#119

Post by dragonwriter »

alanfranz wrote: post #90
Maxion wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds very out of line of what you'd expect. Except if Sam and Greg have some anti-compete clauses. If they join MS, they have a nice 10 billion USD leverage against any lawsuites.

Do anti-compete clauses work when you’ve been ousted? Greg resigned, actually, but Sam was ejected.

> Do anti-compete clauses work when you’ve been ousted?

In jurisdictions where they are enforceable, yes, they generally are not limited based on the manner the working relationship terminated (since they are part of an employment contract, they might become void if there was a breach by the employer.)

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#120

Post by eddtries »

jakey_bakey wrote: post #38
eddtries wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe Sam thinks OpenAI will be so important he has a shot at CEO of Microsoft in a couple years?

But Satya is making a few 100 mil a year, tops. Sam could easily make himself a billionaire with one raise. And who wants to control all of Microsoft, that's a whole lot of headaches

Sam is rich, I assume being CEO of one of the worlds largest companies is a far greater award than extra money when you're at the billionaire level, especially at 38. But I do think this is probably non-compete related too.
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