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OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

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Re: OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

#171

Post by jacquesm »

somedude895 wrote: post #103
righthand wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the board is under any pressure. If they don’t do anything else they just need the employees to fold on their threat to resign. Even if the employees resign, ChatGPT is still running and there are lots of people willing to take the defecting employees spots. The only thing they are pressured on is to fill in the story for the media point of view which is irrelevant to the actual functioning of OpenAI.

> there are lots of people willing to take the defecting employees spots. Even 20% of employees leaving a company simultaneously is catastrophic. I think you're underestimating the effects here.

They might be willing to take the spots, but given that OpenAI has been vacuuming up all of the real talent they could find those surely aren't going to be in the same class as the team that they already have.

Re: OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

#172

Post by squeaky-clean »

righthand wrote: post #79
exitb wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies aren’t valued for their current state, but future prospects.

Is Sam Altman a future prospect of LLMs? It’s not like he holds the secret to GPT v5 or anything.

Seeing the amount of employees that are willing to follow him, yes I'd say he is.

If you have a mass exodus of employees, sure you can hire people to maintain ChatGPT 4, but they won't complete a GPT 5 or 6. That valuation is definitely based on the assumption that they will continue advancing AI and that they will consistently stay ahead of competitors for some time. They just axed both of those assumptions.

ChatGPT 4 as the endgame is not worth 90 billion dollars.

Re: OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

#173

Post by QuantumGood »

jacquesm wrote: post #13

Does anybody know who is currently CEO of OpenAI? Friday, Sam. Saturday, Mira. Sunday was a day off, Monday it was Emmet so who is it for today? Kidding aside, the board is under more and more pressure but - surprisingly - they haven't folded yet. I am interpreting that as that they are trying to get something out of it that nobody is willing to give them. The new CEO is also surprisingly not to be found at all, no p…

There was an internal announcement that Sam had said he would not be deciding overnight Monday.

Re: OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

#174

Post by machinekob »

golergka wrote: post #135
endisneigh wrote: post #36

The employees won’t resign and I doubt Microsoft will match the hypothetical 90B valuation for their profit participation units, otherwise they would’ve left already (Microsoft has agreed to match). The investors have no power here and are effectively irrelevant. The remaining board had little to lose. The charter explicitly calls investment risky, so they’re good there too. > The Company's duty to this mission and t…

> I doubt Microsoft will match the hypothetical 90B valuation for their profit share units, otherwise they would’ve left already (Microsoft has agreed to match) If Microsoft won't, Google or Meta will.

Who would buy 500 people for 90B without tech, dataset, company culture they are pretty much your another excellent ML guys or team.

They can make great things for sure but not more than your organisation will allow them

Im pretty sure this big corporations aren't as fast moving and "we dont care about law/copyright" as ML startups, and people working in Meta/Google are as good as your typical OpenAI guy just with massive corporation on their back and this wont change.

Re: OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

#175

Post by 15457345234 »

phpisthebest wrote: post #144
15457345234 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> New talent won't consider OpenAI I think you can assume that there's a large pool of talent that would love to work at OpenAI, they were just turned off by the ... vibes ... coming from the e/acc locksteppy types. It may be very easy to re-hire talent that's actually a lot smarter, if a bit less 'mission focussed.'

>>they were just turned off by the ... vibes ... So they just need to hire some Gen Z [1], not to actually make AI technology but to make "good vibes" [1] https://nypost.com/2023/11/18/lifestyle/gen-z-workers-say-th... >>I think you can assume that there's a large pool of talent Why would we assume that? Every company in the US currently is complaining endlessly about the lack of talent, in IT especially I see posts…

> in IT especially I see posts from hiring managers being unable to find tech talent

Hasn't the sector been aggressively laying off for the past 6 months? I mean, there have been many many many posts about it here.

Re: OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

#176

Post by righthand »

somedude895 wrote: post #103
righthand wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the board is under any pressure. If they don’t do anything else they just need the employees to fold on their threat to resign. Even if the employees resign, ChatGPT is still running and there are lots of people willing to take the defecting employees spots. The only thing they are pressured on is to fill in the story for the media point of view which is irrelevant to the actual functioning of OpenAI.

> there are lots of people willing to take the defecting employees spots. Even 20% of employees leaving a company simultaneously is catastrophic. I think you're underestimating the effects here.

No I’m not, the effects are most likely short term snafu.

Re: OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

#177

Post by [deleted] »

otteromkram wrote: post #130
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees hate working for companies where they have no voice too. Morale will drop and attrition will skyrocket. New talent won't consider OpenAI, existing talent will leave. The investment goes to zero anyway without talent.

Plenty of talent flooding the market right now. Say, what agenda are you trying to push, spaceman? This is the second comment of yours in this thread trying to make it seem like everyone at OpenAI is irreplaceable, so maybe you missed the hundreds of thousands of tech layoffs this year in the US.

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

#178

Post by dragonwriter »

d--b wrote: post #159

Honest question: Is Altman really worth it? I am surprised by the internal support.

If you have profit sharing, the drive for commercialization is worth it, as is making the big commercializing partner who could otherwise be a competitor happy.

Profit-based compensation in a firm where profit is nominally at best a secondary goal creates misaligned incentives between employees and employer compared to fixed wage/salary.

Re: OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

#179

Post by jacquesm »

DonHopkins wrote: post #107
jacquesm wrote: post #13

Does anybody know who is currently CEO of OpenAI? Friday, Sam. Saturday, Mira. Sunday was a day off, Monday it was Emmet so who is it for today? Kidding aside, the board is under more and more pressure but - surprisingly - they haven't folded yet. I am interpreting that as that they are trying to get something out of it that nobody is willing to give them. The new CEO is also surprisingly not to be found at all, no p…

Credit where credit is due for righting the ship! https://donhopkins.com/home/CostaConcordiaFTFY.jpg

Hehe. That's funny.

Re: OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman’s return

#180

Post by gruturo »

righthand wrote: post #102
flappyeagle wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The board announced the removal of a CEO which they have the power to do. They have the power to remove him momentarily, do they have the power to keep him out? we're still finding out. > OpenAI’s valuation isn’t because Sam Altman is worth $90B it’s the tech. OpenAI's valuation is nominally because of the tech. It's fundamentally because of the people. 90% of the staff is threatening to follow Sam to $MS so that's…

If it’s fundamentally about the people, can you name some of these 90% that OpenAI couldn’t live without? Other than Ilya? From where I’m sitting the 90% are replaceable in a flooded market of available software engineers. If Satya and Sam make them happy then go work for Microsoft. The board is calling their bluff right now.

I can't name them, no, but they're the people who built the thing that is being valued 90B. If they migrate (leadership included), so does the potential for future value. My feeling is that the 90B are moving. Sure, IP, existing contracts, licensing, you name it, will have residual value - but if I consider its board a clown car I will refrain from building on top of its API because they might not be around by lunchtime tomorrow. Enough people think like this, it starts spiraling down the drain.
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