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Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

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Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#191

Post by makeitdouble »

wat10000 wrote: post #154
crystal_revenge wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strangely defensive comment for a post that, at least on the surface, doesn't seem to say anything particularly damning. The fact that you're rushing to defend your CEO sort of proves the point being made, clearly you have to make people believe they're a part of something bigger, not just pay them a lot. The only obvious critique is that clearly Sam Altman doesn't believe this himself . He is legendarily m…

The headline makes it sound like he's angry that Meta is poaching his talent. That's a bad look that makes it seem like you consider your employees to be your property. But he didn't actually say anything like that. I wouldn't consider any of what he said to be "slams," just pretty reasonable discussion of why he thinks they won't do well. I'd say this is yet another example of bad headlines having negative informati…

With no dogs in the fight, the very fact he's talking to his employees about a competitor's hiring practices is noteworthy.

The delivery of the message can be milder and better than how it sounds in the chosen bits, but the overall picture kinda stays the same.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#192

Post by SequoiaHope »

ALLTaken wrote: post #185
paxys wrote: post #152

Pretty telling that OpenAI only now feels like it has to reevaluate compensation for researchers while just weeks ago it spent $6.5 billion to hire Jony Ive. Maybe he can build your superintelligence for you.

[flagged]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ive+openai

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#193

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

Analemma_ wrote: post #182
kevindamm wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a petition with a startlingly high percentage of employees signing it, but no telling how many of them felt pressured to to keep their job.

The thing where dozens of them simultaneously posted “OpenAI is nothing without its people” on Twitter during the coup was so creepy, like actual Jonestown vibes. In an environment like that, there’s no way there wasn’t immense pressure to fall into line.

That seems like kind of an uncharitable take when it can otherwise be explained as collective political action. I’d see the point if it were some repeated ritual but if they just posted something on Twitter one time then it sounds more like an attempt to speak more loudly with a collective voice.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#194

Post by timewizard »

trhway wrote: post #128
timewizard wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In short: "Liars prosper in the short term."

They can prosper longer than you can stay liquid or even alive :)

That depends on the regulatory environment and the degree of market monopolization.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#195

Post by makeitdouble »

pj_mukh wrote: post #139
makeitdouble wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a thought exercise, OpenAI can partner to apply the technology to: - online gambling - kids gambling - algorithmic advertising Are these any better ? All of these are of course money wells and a logical move for a for-profit IMHO. And they can of course also integrate into a Meta competitor's algorithmic feeds as well, putting them at the same level as Meta in that regard. All in all, I'm not seeing them having an…

Wait if an online gambling company uses OpenAI API then hosts it all on AWS, somehow OpenAI is more morally culpable than AWS? Why?

I saw the discussion as whether OpenAI is on a better moral ground than Meta, so this was my angle.

On where the moral burden lies in your example, I'd argue we should follow the money and see what has the most impact on that online gambling company's bottom line.

Inherently that could have the most impact on what happens when that company succeeds: if those become OpenAI's biggest clients, it wouldn't be surprising that they put more and more weight in being well suited for online gambling companies.

Does AWS get specially impacted by hosting online gambling services ? I honestly don't expect them to, not more than community sites or concert ticket sellers.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#196

Post by pj_mukh »

makeitdouble wrote: post #195
pj_mukh wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait if an online gambling company uses OpenAI API then hosts it all on AWS, somehow OpenAI is more morally culpable than AWS? Why?

I saw the discussion as whether OpenAI is on a better moral ground than Meta, so this was my angle. On where the moral burden lies in your example, I'd argue we should follow the money and see what has the most impact on that online gambling company's bottom line. Inherently that could have the most impact on what happens when that company succeeds: if those become OpenAI's biggest clients, it wouldn't be surprising…

There is no world in which online gambling beats other back-office automation in pure revenue terms. I'm comfortable saying that OpenAI would probably have to spend more money policing to make sure their API's aren't used by gambling companies than they'd make off of them. Either way, these are all imagined horrors, so it is difficult to judge.

I am judging the two companies for what they are, not what they could be. And as it is, there is no more damaging technology than Meta's various algorithmic feeds.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#197

Post by incoming1211 »

jlebar wrote: post #113

I think that leaks like this have negative information value to the public. I work at OAI, but I'm speaking for myself here. Sam talks to the company, sometimes via slack, more often in company-wide meetings, all the time. Way more than any other CEO I have worked for. This leaked message is one part of a long, continuing conversation within the company. The vast majority of what he and others say doesn't get leaked.…

Sounds like someone is upset they didn't get poached.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#199

Post by unfitted2545 »

kypro wrote: post #159
jddj wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they understand that it's all performative

Sam comes across as an extremely calculating person to me. I'm not suggesting he's necessarily doing this for bad reasons, but it's very clear to me the public facing communications he makes are well considered and likely not fully reflective of his actual views and positions on things, but instead what he believes to be power maximising. He's very good at creating headlines and getting people talking online. There's…

This interview with Karen Hao is really good (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8enXRDlWguU), she interviews people that have had 1 on 1 meetings with Sam, and they always say he aligned with them on everything to the point where they don't actually know what he believes. He will tailor his opinions to try and weave in trust.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#200

Post by VirusNewbie »

spenvo wrote: post #15

OpenAI's tight spot: 1) They are far from profitability. 2) Meta is aggressively making their top talent more expensive, and outright draining it. 3) Deepseek/Baidu/etc are dramatically undercutting them. 4) Anthropic and (to a lesser extent?) Google appear to be beating them (or, charitably, matching them) on AI's best use case so far: coding. 5) Altman is becoming less like-able with every unnecessary episode of dr…

Good analysis, my counter to it is that OpenAI has one of the leading foundational models, while Meta, despite being a top paying tech company, continued to release sub par models that don't come close to the other big three.

So, what happened? Is there something fundamentally wrong with the culture and/or infra at Meta? If it was just because Zuckerburg bet on the wrong horses to lead their LLM initiatives, what makes us think he got it right this time?

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