If I were OpenAI employee, I would have been uber pissed.
Imagine your once-in-blue-moon, whatsapp-like, payout at $10m per employee evaporated over the weekend before Thanksgiving.
I would have joined MSFT out of spite.
OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
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Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Not sure if you listened to the podcast.
But Satya made it crystal clear that in the event that OpenAI stopped all development tomorrow, Microsoft would be able to pick up from where they stopped. That requires full access to all of the IP.
Whether it's perpetual is irrelevant because at the point at which Microsoft pulled the trigger it would effectively be like a fork. Any IP from that point is new and owned by Microsoft.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#193Baseless prediction: MSFT buys ownership of OpenAI's for/capped-profit entities, implements a more typical corporate governance structure, re-instates Altman and Brockman. OpenAI non-profit continues to exist with a few staff and no IP but billions in cash. This whole situation is being used to drive the price down to reduce the amount the OpenAI non-profit is left with. SV don't try the "capped-profit owned by a non…
Hearing news about OpenAI approaching Anthropic for merger talks, it is not too far fetched to assumed that OpenAI will rid itself of the for-profit arm, that MS has 49% stake in, to MS itself.
It is impossible for OpenAI to work with or for MS, with MS holding all the keys, employees, compute resources, etc. I come to understand that the 10 Billion from MS has mostly Azure credits. And for that OpenAI gave up 49% stake (in its capped, for -profit wholly owned subsidiary) along with all the technology, source code and model weights that OpenAI will make, in perpetuity.
The deal itself is an amazing coup for MS, almost making the OpenAI people (I think Sam made the deal at the time), look like bumbling fools. Give away your lifetime of work for a measly 10 Billion? When they are poised to almost be hundreds of Billions worth?
All these problems are the result of their non-profit holding capped-profit structure, and lack of a clear vision and misleading or misplaced end goals.
700 of the 770 employees back Sam Altman. So all the talk about engineers giving higher importance to "values" and "AI Safety" is moot. Everyone in SV is motivated by money.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#194Giving 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.
Back in the late 80s, Lotus faced a crisis with their spreadsheet, Lotus 1-2-3. Should they:
1. stick with DOS
2. go with OS/2
3. go with Windows
Lotus chose (2). But the market went with (3), and Lotus was destroyed by Excel. Lotus was a wealthy company at the time. I would have created three groups, and done all three options.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#195Giving 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.
Was that verbatim the reason or an angry persons characterisation?
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#196Giving 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.
Does a board give an assignment to the CEO or teams?
If the case is that the will of the board is not being fulfilled, then the reasoning is simple. The CEO was told to do something and he has not done it. So, he is ousted. Plain and simple.
This talk about projects given to two teams and what not is nonsense. The board should care if its work is done, not how the work is done. That is the job of the CEO.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#197People were given two reasons, at least one of them must be wrong. Probably both.
No, the two listed reasons aren't mutually exclusive; they could both be true. (That is not a commentary on whether the reasons are sufficient cause to fire someone, just pointing out that they could both be true statements)
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#198> The people asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to share internal matters. Their identities are known to Business Insider. why would you say that second sentence? what's it supposed to signal, except "our sources asked for anonymity, and we're respecting that for now "?
It indicates that BI and the authors verified these sources were current OpenAI employees instead of some unaffiliated novelty account on a RP spree, and have staked their reputation to that claim. Standard journalism stuff.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#199> One explanation was that Altman was said to have given two people at OpenAI the same project. Have these people never worked at any other company before? Probably every company with more than 10 employees does something like this.
Actually, they haven’t. One is some policy analyst and the other is an actor’s wife.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#200Earlier 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.
Then He should be fired for incompetence and never given a leadership position ever again. I don’t even like Sam but jeeze. Know the score what a fool.
Exactly. Too many people arguing incompetence as if its a valid excuse.
Imagine its even true - that they werent his reasons and he was just told them. He voted to fire him and then executed the firing despite not agreeing with the reasons himself? Completely inexcusable even in the bizarre scenario that its true.