211–220 of 359 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the before times, companies went public to raise capital in order to grow their business.
Does that seem like what’s happening here?
This is kind of a wild story. Sam Altman is openly flexing that he was able to skirt the rules and regulations by threatening economic damage to California. It's not even subtle anymore. This reminds me of when the former CEO of Hyundai, Chung Mong-koo, went to prison for embezzlement. In just 3 years he was pardoned because the President of South Korea basically said, "we need you for the economy." We're not even pr…
didn't Sam does this before with another company? he was able to restructure it and come out on top... searching for article... was it Helion? now that i think harder, didnt he comment about it on HN??
This is kind of a wild story. Sam Altman is openly flexing that he was able to skirt the rules and regulations by threatening economic damage to California. It's not even subtle anymore. This reminds me of when the former CEO of Hyundai, Chung Mong-koo, went to prison for embezzlement. In just 3 years he was pardoned because the President of South Korea basically said, "we need you for the economy." We're not even pr…
Can someone explain to me what Sam Altman is doing to be so far ahead of everyone else in terms of navigating these high stakes roles? This happened at YC and a number of other places too, he goes into situations with nothing and comes out on top despite all odds. Is he that skilled an operator, negotiator, or manipulator or something?
(0) Be exceptionally intelligent and capable of applying that intelligence to people, not just code or math — necessary for everything that follows.
(1) Keep attention diversified as long as possible until the winning path becomes obvious.
(2) Focus on fringe bets, but pursue many simultaneously until one clearly dominates (see (1)).
(3) Extreme social manipulation — people-pleasing, control- and power-seeking, selective transparency, skillful large-scale dishonesty, and a willingness to hurt or betray when it serves (1) and (2) and the relational cost is acceptable.
(2) brought him into the startup ecosystem and the first YC batch in the first place (he had to start somewhere); combined with (3) he made an early fortune from a failed startup. (3) also ingratiated him with PG and others in those years. (1)+(2) ensured he always had exposure to every plausible frontier of the industry; when he was effectively fired from YC for (1)+(3), (2) made the OpenAI pivot the next obvious move — and a better one. (3) almost cost him his career a second time when the board fired him from OpenAI temporarily, but he survived because (3) also ensured he had enough to offer everyone else that he leveraged his way back in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the before times, companies went public to raise capital in order to grow their business.
Does that seem like what’s happening here?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> linking to pre-covid studies I'm linking to studies summarising a century of work. There is no evidence Covid changed this. Exhibit A for Covid having not changed this is the continuing supremacy of Silicon Valley (tech), Shenzhen (manufacturing) and New York (finance) as industrial clusters that others have tried to replicate (everyone, America and Miami, respectively) and failed. > Let's take a step back and look…
> Exhibit A for Covid having not changed this is the continuing supremacy of Silicon Valley (tech) You mean like when China built chatgpt 4 in a weekend and open-sourced it for giggles? > Shenzhen (manufacturing) ..or you mean how US manufacturing 'clusters' almost completely disappeared/replaced by Chinese ones? > Proximity to investors. Proximity to customers. Proximity to a skilled employee pool. Proxomity to acqu…
Link?
I don’t understand the animus towards OAI going public. ChatGPT undoubtedly changed the world. The non->for profit status of the company is not impacting anyone. It’s not like their success was made possible by being a non-profit. Suddenly everyone here is very very concerned with the classification of this corporate entity, and I detect people feel personally slighted. Why is that?
> The non->for profit status of the company is not impacting anyone. They're quite literally running away with millions in tax money they stole. That means from YOU. It's a sense of entitlement that pisses people off. Imagine you're a hardworking American who pays his taxes for the betterment of his country. And then here comes this Sam Altman douchebag, who thinks he's so important he doesn't have to pay taxes. He t…
If this happened any non-western country headlines would say "corruption".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> workers and supporters who were taken by this idealistic vision The only people who can claim harm are donors and workers who actually left, e.g. Murati. "Supporters" aren't stakeholders in any material sense.
choosing whether to use, or advocate for, a company's services is a form of support
Sure. But if the services are rendered, the ideology is orthogonal. For the slim minority of uncompromising zealots for whom it is not, damages can be quantified and paid.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the development of this technology was originally done under a certain set of promises ostensibly intended to prevent pure capitalist profitmaxxing. The workers and supporters who were taken by this idealistic vision, believe it was a bait-and-switch, and that the original promises were never intended to be kept.
> workers and supporters who were taken by this idealistic vision The only people who can claim harm are donors and workers who actually left, e.g. Murati. "Supporters" aren't stakeholders in any material sense.
As stated in their foundational legal filings, the primary activity of OpenAI is supposed to be described as: OpenAI, Inc. ("OpenAI") is a nonprofit artificial intelligence ("AI") scientific research organization. Its goal is to engage in research activities that advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. AI technology will help shape the 21st century, and OpenAI wants to help the world build safe AI technology and ensure that AI's benefits are as widely and evenly distributed as possible. To that end, OpenAI hopes to build AI as part of a larger community, and wants to openly share its plans and capabilities along the way.
As a member of humanity as a whole, they are supposed to be operating for my benefit, not primarily for the benefit of their investors. If they wanted to operate primarily for the benefit of their investors, they should have been paying taxes on every dollar they brought in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They absolutely can leave the state. Board independence is largely a silly idea, people aren't even on the same page as to what the board is supposed to be independent of, and in this case it's not even clear which board you mean - the current one? The previous one? In what way are they less independent than any other board?
> people aren't even on the same page as to what the board is supposed to be independent of In the U.S. they absolutely are. The SEC defines independent directors [1]. If the majority of a (Delaware corporation's) Board isn't independent, it opens up the company and even individual Board members to heightened scrutiny by the courts [2]. [1] https://www.skadden.com/-/media/files/publications/2022/02/t... [2] https://w…
"Independence is neither a fixed condition nor a universal status for all purposes. " and goes on to talk about how complicated it is to even define and how it depends on who is defining it.
Your document makes my exact point, not yours. You are out of your depth.