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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

#161

Post by kjksf »

soumyadeb wrote: post #116
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?

This is Microsoft starting a copy machine to replace OpenAI with in-house tech in medium to long term.

Apparently Microsoft already had plans to spend $50 billion on cloud hardware.

Now they are getting software talent and insider knowledge to replace OpenAI software with in-house tech built by Sam, Greg and others that will join.

Satya just pulled a kill move on OpenAI.

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

#162

Post by clhodapp »

Due to Microsoft's very generous licensing agreements, this may be the best shot Altman, Brockman, and Nadella have to launder the technology that is currently owned by the OpenAI non-profit. If they manage to poach key staff, they may be able to resume their attempts at rapid commercial growth outside of the confines of the OpenAI mission.

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

#163

Post by jimsimmons »

mirzap wrote: post #127
nostromo wrote: post #82

This is sorta brilliant. Microsoft has access to almost everything OpenAI does. And now Altman and Brockman will have that access too. Meanwhile, I imagine their tenure at MSFT will be short-lived, because hot-shot startup folks don’t really want to work there. They can stabilize, use OpenAI’s data and models for free, use Microsoft’s GPUs at cost, and start a new company shortly, of which Microsoft will own some lar…

Satya will probably allow them to run a startup under the MS umbrella without interference and with full MS backing.

How will equity and compensation work

AI peeps are not cheap

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

#164

Post by icelancer »

threeseed wrote: post #144
Satam wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they only had AI model velocity and not product velocity. The user-side implementation of chatGPT is actually quite below what would be expected based on their AI superiority. So the parts that Sam & Greg should be responsible for are actually not great.

Sam and Greg were responsible for everything including building the company, deciding on strategy, raising funding, hiring most of the team, coordinating the research, building the partnership with Microsoft and acquiring the huge array of enterprise customers. To act like they were just responsible for the "UI parts" is ridiculous.

It's typical HN/engineer brain to discount the CEO and other "non-technical" staff as leeches.

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

#165

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

famouswaffles wrote: post #110
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #62

Presumably Sam and Greg now get to pick up where they left off and keep productizing GPT-4 since Microsoft has the IP and is hosting their own GPT-4 models on Azure, right? The more interesting thing is whether or not they'll be able to build and release something equivalent to GPT-5, using Microsoft's immense resources, before OpenAI is able to.

GPT-5 is almost certainly already done. But considering they sat on 4 for 8 months with Altman as head, who knows if it'll see the light of day.

Do you think Microsoft gets access to it?

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

#166

Post by CSMastermind »

In 1990 Microsoft hired all of the important talent from Borland who up until that point had been outpacing them in terms of product development.

We got Access, Visual Studio, and .Net / C# as a direct result.

Borland faded into obscurity.

Hard not to feel like there will be a parallel here.

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

#167

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

karmasimida wrote: post #92
throwaw12 wrote: post #36

Others from OpenAI team, maybe can lead the AI research, but how does Sam can lead a research group? IMO, to lead a research group you need some decent research skills, Sam is good at business

My guess: This is no research group, this is OpenAI 2.0, Sam/Greg will have enormous autonomy. It will be foolish to think Satya just recruited them to tangle them in MSFT bureaucracy

BigCos generally have a hard time keeping their autonomous groups actually isolated from bureaucracy. Lab126 has been thoroughly corporatized, and Area 120 got outright reabsorbed.

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

#169

Post by haldujai »

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

As in liquidate a billion in one raise? Is that kosher these days?

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

#170

Post by osti »

dorkwood wrote: post #129
osti wrote: post #104

Altman's value is in business, how does bringing him to Microsoft to lead a research team help?

He can court developers he has existing relationships with.

How many is that gonna be? 20% of the devs would be a generous estimate imo.
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