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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

#201
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody wants to invest in a personality cult that's sworn an oath of fealty to one guy, dude. That's basically flushing money down the toilet, as this fiasco demonstrates. Are you aware that Microsoft and Salesforce CEOs have both offered to hire any OpenAI employees who want to switch boat, while Nvidia CEO and Meta's FAIR team have both made similar but slightly lesser "call me" offers to all of them? https://coi…

> made similar but slightly lesser "call me" offers to all of them Sure, it's in their interest to break up a unified bloc of talent. Doesn't mean they genuinely want them. > ??? The behaviour demonstrated by many of the staff on twitter is, for want of a better word, unhinged. Odd declarations of loyalty. 4am posts. Retweeting hearts. Acting very 'ride or die.' It's weird.

> Sure, it's in their interest to break up a unified bloc of talent. Doesn't mean they genuinely want them.

Doesn't fit. In the scenario where they're all thinking that, nobody has to follow up with the same offer after the first person says it.

> The behaviour demonstrated by many of the staff on twitter is, for want of a better word, unhinged. Odd declarations of loyalty. 4am posts. Retweeting hearts. Acting very 'ride or die.' It's weird.

How is any of that "sacrifice their children on twitter"?

I mean, jeez, this is major drama even for the rest of the tech community — this whole thing is even front-page on the BBC news site as I write — of course the people who work there are going to say things on Twitter.

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

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-solicitation agreements are like super-illegal in California. See the "wage fixing" case against Apple, Google, Adobe, Pixar, Intuit, and Intel.

It is different between JV partners or between vendor and customer . If non solicit agreement were not legal for those , consulting companies either tech or management consulting will not be able to operate at all .

JV partners are entirely different form consulting arrangements though and these are some pretty exceptional circumstances.

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

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends very much on the locality. What's legal in one country will get you in serious trouble in many others. hi there!

The clauses are common in the UK but I see them all the time from startups incorporated in Delaware. Maybe they're there for the deterrent factor. Also, hi!

Yes, they get put in but if you try to enforce them you'll find that you can't.

We sign contracts with non-poaching elements in them all the time because the companies we look at are afraid that we will use our inside knowledge to go after their best talent. But I suspect that just the basic protections an employee has under employment law would be enough to stop a company from trying to enforce this (we have a term for this in Dutch which is called 'broodroof' but I don't know any good English translation).

That said: for Execs and consultants it is a different matter. But they are not rank-and-file employees.

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

#204

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…

Does anybody know who is currently CEO of OpenAI?

They should assign ChatGPT to be CEO

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

#205

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.

These words are gonna get ate one way or another. There is no outcome where the current board wins. Emmet is already threatening the board with resignation unless they provide evidence of wrongdoing [1]. Which they don't have, because they would have revealed it already. They are empty shirts. [1] https://x.com/emilychangtv/status/1727020834005700914?s=20

> Emmet is already threatening the board with resignation

so says anonymous sources close to OpenAI who look suspiciously like MSFT wearing a fake mustache

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they not aligned? They didn’t oust Sam because of profit they ousted him for dishonesty.

are you serious? they're board members of the non-profit... they don't have any shares in the for-profit subsidiary and thus no financial incentive for commercializing the IP meanwhile, all the employees are paid via a profit sharing scheme. 98% of them are backing Altman because they don't want to see their compensation nuked.

How does ousting Altman nuke compensation? If they keep working there and bring in a new CEO equivalent to Altman with less dishonesty then everyone still wins, except Altman.

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

#207
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody wants to invest in a personality cult that's sworn an oath of fealty to one guy, dude. That's basically flushing money down the toilet, as this fiasco demonstrates. Are you aware that Microsoft and Salesforce CEOs have both offered to hire any OpenAI employees who want to switch boat, while Nvidia CEO and Meta's FAIR team have both made similar but slightly lesser "call me" offers to all of them? https://coi…

Also cointelegraph (lol) is not a reliable source of ... anything. Apart from hype, maybe.

I might agree except they cited their sources and I checked them. I may be wrong, but those look like legit X accounts to me.

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

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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.

you have confused "tech company layoffs" with "tech worker layoffs"

Alot of Tech companies have been laying off alot of support staff in HR, Recruitment, Sales, and other business functions

and yes some Technical roles as well, but dont think because you see "Google Lays of X,000 employees" means they just laid off that many AI Researchers, programmers, etc...

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

#209

It's not reported as much as it should be, but at one point in 2021 the OpenAI board had 10 people on it. In the beginning of 2023 it had 9 people. 3 stepped down over the course of 2023 and were not replaced, leaving only 6 in place by the time of last week's fiasco. 2 of the 6 were then removed on Friday leaving 4. The typical large company will have 10-12 people on the board. Apparently, OpenAI's bylaws do not set…

> Apparently, OpenAI's bylaws do not set a fixed size for the board and allow the board itself to elect and remove members and allows a simple majority to take any action without even requiring a formal meeting. For their sake I do hope they read the bylaws and that your 'apparently' doesn't come back to haunt them because then they are in even more trouble. > The path forward has to include not only all 4 of the cur…

If not removal then at least a clear split into two separate (for-profit and non-profit) entities with no parent-sub relationship. Then have an agreement where the for-profit entity commits to a specified funding level for the non-profit in exchange for a license to commercially use/resell the IP.

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

#210
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So no evidence of wrongdoing then: -----> WHY DID THEY DO IT? SERIOUSLY! They all just decided to wake up that day and say let's go fire Sam and blow up the company because "lack of candor" that they can't even give details on?? These are serious people doing serious stuff. These are not idiots. What the heck is going on? Can anyone explain?

My guess, and it is just a guess, is that there's some deep and fundamental position that the board members hold to, which Sam cannot describe well enough to pass the Ideological Turing Test[0], and this failure was perceived as being deliberately dishonest. Happens a lot. I know some on the very extreme outskirts of the left wing who look at the "splitters!" scene in Life of Brian and see themselves; I've seen it in…

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