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OpenAI to become for-profit company

reuters.com

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Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#221

Post by tomp »

kweingar wrote: post #219

Can anybody explain how this actually works? What happens to all of the non-profit's assets? They can't just give it away for investors to own. The non-profit could maybe sell its assets to investors, but then what would it do with the money? I'm sure OpenAI has an explanation, but I really want to hear more details. In the most simple analysis of "non-profit becomes for-profit", there's really no way to square it ot…

exactly.

If that's how it works, why wouldn't you start every startup as a non-profit?

Investment is tax deductible, no tax on profits...

Then turn it into a for-profit if/when it becomes successful!

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#222

Post by htk »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #11

The most surprising thing to me in this is that the non-profit will still exist. Not sure what the point of it is anymore. Taken as a whole, OpenAI is now just a for-profit entity beholden to investors and Sam Altman as a shareholder. The non-profit is really just vestigial. I guess technically it's supposed to play some role in making sure OpenAI "benefits humanity". But as we've seen multiple times, whenever that g…

The non-profit will probably freeze the value of the assets accumulated so far, with new revenue going to the for-profit, to avoid the tax impact. Otherwise that'd be a great way to start companies, as non-profit and then after growth you flip the switch.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#223

Post by fakedang »

Gud wrote: post #197
fakedang wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily, I think all the non-profit motivated talent has left, and the people left behind are those who stand to (and want to) make a killing when OpenAI becomes a for-profit. And that talent is in the majority - nothing else would explain the show of support for Altman when he was kicked out.

What “show of support”? Not willing to rock the boat is not the same as being supportive.

What were all those open letter and "let's jump to Microsoft with Altman" shenanigans that the employees were carrying out then?

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#225

Post by Vegenoid »

marviel wrote: post #212
lioeters wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scraping the entire internet for training data without regard for copyright or attribution - specifically to use for generative AI to produce similar content for profit. How this is being allowed to happen legally is baffling. It does suit the modus operandi of a number of American companies that start out as literally illegal/criminal operations until they get big and rich enough to pay a fine for their youthful mis…

scraping is fine by me. burning the bridge so nobody else can legally scrape, that's the line.

What about the situation where the first players got to scrape, then all the content companies realize what’s going on so they lock their data up behind paywalls?

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#227

Post by tomp »

moralestapia wrote: post #209
phito wrote: post #20

I know nothing about companies (esp. in the US), but I find it weird that a company can go from non-profit to for-profit? Surely this would be taken advantage of. Can someone explain me how this work?

It's not weird, it's illegal. There's a lot of jurisdiction around preventing this sort of abuse of the non-profit concept. The reason why the people involved are not on trial right now is a bit of a mystery to me, but could be a combination of: * Still too soon, all of this really took shape in the past year or two. * Only Musk has sued them, so far, and that happened last month. * There's some favoritism from the g…

> Dismantling OpenAI is actually a business strategy for many other players now.

Which ones exactly?

NVIDIA is drinking sweet money from OpenAI.

Microsoft & Apple are in cahoots with it.

Meta/Facebook seems happy to compete with OpenAI on a fair playing field.

Anthropic lacks the resources.

Amazon doesn't seem to care.

Google is asleep.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#228

Post by flkenosad »

beepbooptheory wrote: post #131
lioeters wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope some journalist popularizes "clopen" as a neologism to describe organizations that claim to be open and transparent but in practice are closed and opaque. Or "clopen-source software", projects that claim to be open-source but vital pieces are proprietary.

Probably most people here don't know this (and probably not totally universal), but a "clopen" is what you call it when you have to work a morning shift the day after having worked an evening shift.

This is the first thing I thought of.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#230

Post by cbeach »

PierceJoy wrote: post #78
cebu_blue wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon Musk isn't "advancing humanity".

I'm very far from a musk fan, and if you want to make the case that musk isn't responsible for Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink I think that's a legitimate argument to be made. But I don't think there's much argument to be made that those 3 companies are not advancing humanity.

Tesla and SpaceX would not exist OR prosper, without Musk.

If you want to understand why, read the Walter Isaacson biography of Musk (which is based on accounts by his friends, enemies and employees). He's a hard-arsed manager, he is technically involved at all levels of the company, he is relentless, and he takes risks and iterates like no other CEO.

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