Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#151

Post by wkat4242 » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:19 PM UTC

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #142

only-one1701 wrote: post #22

Maybe I'm just cynical, but I wonder how much of this initiative and energy is driven by people at Microsoft who want their own star to rise higher than it can when it's bound by a third-party technology. I feel like this is something I've seen a fair amount in my career. About seven years ago, when Google was theoretically making a big push to stage Angular on par with React, I remember complaining that the document…

OpenAI already started divorce proceedings with their datacenter partnership with Softbank/etc, and it'd hardly be prudent for the world's largest software company NOT to have it's own SOTA AI models. Nadella might have initially been caught a bit flat footed with the rapid rise of AI, but seems to be managing the situation masterfully.

In what world is what they are doing masterful? Their product marketing is a huge mess, they keep changing the names of everything every few months. Nobody knows which Copilot does what anymore. It really feels like they're scrambling to be first to market. It all feels so incredibly rushed.

Whatever is there doesn't work half the time. They're hugely dependent on one partner that could jump ship at any moment (granted they are now working to get away from that).

We use Copilot at work but I find it very lukewarm. If we weren't a "Microsoft shop" I don't think would have chosen it.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#152

Post by mikepurvis » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:19 PM UTC

scubbo wrote: post #136

darkhorse222 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see that a lot from the Go crowd. That's why I consider any strong opinions on languages to be a poor indicator for ability. Sure there's differences, but a language does not make the engineer. Someone who is attracted to flashy stuff makes for an indulgent planner.

> That's why I consider any strong opinions on languages to be a poor indicator for ability. Hmm. Can't say I agree here - at least not with the literal text of what you've written (although maybe we agree in spirit). I agree that _simplistic_ strong opinions about languages are a sign of poor thoughtfulness (" is good and is bad") - but I'd very much expect a Staff+ engineer to have enough experience to have strong…

Absolutely. Anyone senior should be able to fairly quickly get a handle on the requirements for a particular project and put forward a well-reasoned opinion on an appropriate tech stack for it. There might be some blank space in there for "I've heard of X and Y that actually might fit this use case slightly better, so it's probably worth a brief investigation of those options, but I've used Z before so I know about the corner cases we may run into, and that has value too."

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#153

Post by pclmulqdq » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:19 PM UTC

BeetleB wrote: post #84

moelf wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$20k can't get you that many PhD. Even PhD students, who's nominal salary is maybe $3-5k a month, effectively costs double that because of school overhead and other stuff.

> Even PhD students, who's nominal salary is maybe $3-5k a month Do they really get paid that much these days?

$3k/month is the very top of the market.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#154

Post by whstl » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:19 PM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #68

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people should be fired. I want a tech company where people are there to make good products first and get paid second. And the pay should be good. The lifestyle comfortable. No grindset bullshit. But I am confident that if you only employ passionate people working their dream jobs you will excel.

Why would those people be “fired” when the entire promotion process and promo docs emphasize “scope” and “impact”? No one works for any BigTech company because they think they are making the world a better place. They do it because a shit ton of money appears in their bank account every pay period and stock appears in their brokerage account every vesting period. I personally don’t have the shit tolerance to work in…

Yep. I've seen more people fired for being passionate about their craft and their jobs than people getting raises for the same reason.

It's always the same. People trying to make things better for the next developer, people prioritizing delivers instead of ego-projects or ego-features by someone playing politics, developers wanting a seat at the table with (dysfunctional) Product teams, people actual good intentions trying to "change the world" (not counting the misguided attempts here).

You are 100% correct, you gotta play the politics, period.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#155

Post by debacle » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:20 PM UTC

It's clear that OpenAI has peaked. Possibly because the AI hype in general has peaked, but I think moreso because the opportunity has become flooded and commoditized, and only the fetishists are still True Believers (which is something we saw during the crypto hype days, but most at the time decried it).

Nothing against them, but the solutions have become commoditized, and OpenAI is going to lack the network effects that these other companies have.

Perhaps there will be new breakthroughs in the near future that produce even more value, but how long can a moat be sustained? All of them in AI are filled in faster than the are dug.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#156

Post by aaronblohowiak » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:20 PM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #151

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI already started divorce proceedings with their datacenter partnership with Softbank/etc, and it'd hardly be prudent for the world's largest software company NOT to have it's own SOTA AI models. Nadella might have initially been caught a bit flat footed with the rapid rise of AI, but seems to be managing the situation masterfully.

In what world is what they are doing masterful? Their product marketing is a huge mess, they keep changing the names of everything every few months. Nobody knows which Copilot does what anymore. It really feels like they're scrambling to be first to market. It all feels so incredibly rushed. Whatever is there doesn't work half the time. They're hugely dependent on one partner that could jump ship at any moment (grant…

> scrambling to be first

Third?

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#157

Post by crowcroft » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:21 PM UTC

I mean, obviously? There is no good reason to go all in on OpenAI for Microsoft?

Also a bit hyperbolic. I'm sure there are good reasons Microsoft would want to build it's own products on top of their own models and have more fine control of things. That doesn't mean they are plotting a future where they do nothing at all with OpenAI.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#158

Post by trentnix » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:23 PM UTC

wkat4242 wrote: post #151

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI already started divorce proceedings with their datacenter partnership with Softbank/etc, and it'd hardly be prudent for the world's largest software company NOT to have it's own SOTA AI models. Nadella might have initially been caught a bit flat footed with the rapid rise of AI, but seems to be managing the situation masterfully.

In what world is what they are doing masterful? Their product marketing is a huge mess, they keep changing the names of everything every few months. Nobody knows which Copilot does what anymore. It really feels like they're scrambling to be first to market. It all feels so incredibly rushed. Whatever is there doesn't work half the time. They're hugely dependent on one partner that could jump ship at any moment (grant…

> Their product marketing is a huge mess, they keep changing the names of everything every few months. Nobody knows which Copilot does what anymore. It really feels like they're scrambling to be first to market. It all feels so incredibly rushed.

Product confusion, inconsistent marketing, unnecessary product renames, and rushing half-baked solutions has been the Microsoft way for dozens of products across multiple divisions for years.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#159

Post by whstl » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:25 PM UTC

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #66

bsimpson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a prominent subset of the tech crowd who are ladder climbers - ruthlessly pursuing what is rewarded with pay/title/prestige without regard to actually making good stuff. There are countless kidding-on-the-square jokes about projects where the innovators left at launch and passed it off to the maintenance team, or where a rebrand was in pursuit of someone's promo project. See also, killedbygoogle.com.

At my former employer, there was a team who were very much into resume-driven development and wrote projects in Go even when Java would have been the better alternative considering the overall department and maintenance team expertise, all the while they were informally grumbling about how Go doesn’t have the features they need…

I have lot of sympathy for resume-driven developers. They're just answering to the labor market. More power to them.

When companies do what the market expect we praise them. When it's workers, we scorn them. This attitude is seriously fucked up.

When companies start hiring based on experience, adaptability, curiosity, potential and curiosity then you get to complain. Until that, anyone doing it should be considered a fucking genius.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#160

Post by myhf » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 9:27 PM UTC

only-one1701 wrote: post #19

aresant wrote: post #4

Thematically investing billions into startup AI frontier models makes sense if you believe in first-to-AGI likely worth a trillion dollars + Investing in second/third place likely valuable at similar scales too But outside of that MSFTs move indicates that frontier models most valuable current use case - enterprise-level API users - are likely to be significantly commoditized And likely majority of proceeds will be c…

What even is AGI? Like, what does it look like? Genuine question.

The official definition of AGI is a system that can generate at least $100 billion in profits. For comparison, this would be like if perceptrons in 1968 could generate $10 billion in profits, or if LISP machines in 1986 could generate $35 billion in profits, or if expert systems in 1995 could generate $50 billion in profits.