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OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

businessinsider.com

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Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#181

Post by threeseed »

skygazer wrote: post #74
fullshark wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put me in the "Ilya didn't realize what firing Altman / demoting Brockman would actually mean and is trying to correct his mistake" camp.

This could well be, but I still struggle to grasp it. He seemed so much smarter. Were they manipulative or beguiling? Does he cave to the merest social pressure? And that Quora CEO should have know such flimsy excuses were BS and this would be a firestorm. I’ve never seen group think so powerful, outside of junior devs and elementary school students. I’m generally not a conspiracy theorist, and I have no good candida…

> This could well be, but I still struggle to grasp it. He seemed so much smarter

This isn't about intelligence but about business experience.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#182

Post by himaraya »

ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #163
himaraya wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the board endorse the sale?

Taking the current state of things at face value, Altman and Brockman are going to MSFT already and >90% of OpenAI staff are set to resign. If that happens they'll be forced to wind down operations. That will disintegrate their partnerships, which are their source of funding. They'll be left with IP but no staff and no resources to make any use of it. They might decide that if that's going to happen anyway they shoul…

The board likely thinks the IP gives them leverage to attract talent after the drama subsides. Otherwise, they may very well go for broke.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#183

Post by nopromisessir »

ospray wrote: post #94

If this is true Ilya messed up and the board followed him when they should have talked him down.

I think Ilya got very worried that his concerns were not being heard.

I think the rest had possible reasons ranging from 'I'm sure Altman is dangerous' to 'I'm sure Altman shouldn't be running this company'.

Ofc there's big conflict of interest talk surrounding the Quora guy. Can't speak to that other than it looks bad on the surface.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#185

Post by gnicholas »

threeseed wrote: post #165
ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employees haven't left yet. Business continuity is easier to achieve if the employment arrangements don't have to change. MSFT don't have OpenAI's IP. They have an exclusive right to some of it, but there's presumably a bunch that's not accessible to them. Again, business continuity is easier if they can just grab all of that and keep everything running as normal.

> MSFT don't have OpenAI's IP Satya Nadella just did a podcast with Kara Swisher. In it he specifically said, "we have all of the IP rights to continue the innovation". https://open.spotify.com/episode/4i4lKsKevNSGEUnuu7Jzn6

The right to continue innovation doesn’t mean they have perpetual rights to the underlying IP. For example, they may be able to use it for a limited period, or for certain purposes.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#186

Post by PurelyApplied »

discordance wrote: post #168
kumarvvr wrote: post #65

Giving 2 people the same project? Isnt this like the thing to do to get differing approaches and then release the amalgamation of the two? I thought these sorts of things are common. Giving different opinions on same person is a reason to fire a CEO? This board has no reason to fire, or does not want to give the actual reason to fire Sam. They messed up.

Happens all the time. Teams of people at Google work on the same features, only to find out near launch that they lost to another team who had been working on the same thing without their knowledge.

[flagged]

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#187

Post by peteradio »

threeseed wrote: post #165
ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employees haven't left yet. Business continuity is easier to achieve if the employment arrangements don't have to change. MSFT don't have OpenAI's IP. They have an exclusive right to some of it, but there's presumably a bunch that's not accessible to them. Again, business continuity is easier if they can just grab all of that and keep everything running as normal.

> MSFT don't have OpenAI's IP Satya Nadella just did a podcast with Kara Swisher. In it he specifically said, "we have all of the IP rights to continue the innovation". https://open.spotify.com/episode/4i4lKsKevNSGEUnuu7Jzn6

You could say that if you "believed" you could build it from scratch. It doesn't mean they actually own the existing IP although rubes thinking about buying MSFT may think so.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#188

Post by fluidcruft »

kumarvvr wrote: post #65

Giving 2 people the same project? Isnt this like the thing to do to get differing approaches and then release the amalgamation of the two? I thought these sorts of things are common. Giving different opinions on same person is a reason to fire a CEO? This board has no reason to fire, or does not want to give the actual reason to fire Sam. They messed up.

I guess it depends on whether any of them actually got the assignment. One way to interpret it is that nobody is taking that assignment seriously. So depending on what that assignment is and how important that particular assignment is to the board, then it may in fact be a big deal.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#189

Post by ytoawwhra92 »

threeseed wrote: post #165
ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The employees haven't left yet. Business continuity is easier to achieve if the employment arrangements don't have to change. MSFT don't have OpenAI's IP. They have an exclusive right to some of it, but there's presumably a bunch that's not accessible to them. Again, business continuity is easier if they can just grab all of that and keep everything running as normal.

> MSFT don't have OpenAI's IP Satya Nadella just did a podcast with Kara Swisher. In it he specifically said, "we have all of the IP rights to continue the innovation". https://open.spotify.com/episode/4i4lKsKevNSGEUnuu7Jzn6

I don't think that contradicts my comment.

Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired

#190

Post by ssnistfajen »

stingraycharles wrote: post #117
didip wrote: post #112

What will happen to employee’s stock options if they all mass quit and moved to Microsoft? The options will be worth $0, right?

From what I understand, Microsoft realizes this and gives them the equivalent of their OAI stock options in MSFT stock options if they join them now. For some employees, this may mean $10MM+

More evidence the layoffs are 100% BS. Suddenly there's surplus headcount and magical budgets out of nothing, all to accommodate several hundreds of people with way-above-market-average TCs. It's almost like they were never in danger of hurting profit margins in the first place.
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