Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#251

Post by CSMastermind » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 11:46 PM UTC

devsda wrote: post #215

bsimpson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a prominent subset of the tech crowd who are ladder climbers - ruthlessly pursuing what is rewarded with pay/title/prestige without regard to actually making good stuff. There are countless kidding-on-the-square jokes about projects where the innovators left at launch and passed it off to the maintenance team, or where a rebrand was in pursuit of someone's promo project. See also, killedbygoogle.com.

> There is a prominent subset of the tech crowd who are ladder climbers - ruthlessly pursuing what is rewarded with pay/title/prestige without regard to actually making good stuff. I think the hiring and reward practices of the organizations & the industry as a whole also encourages this sort of behavior. When you reward people who are switching too often or only when moving internally/externally, switching becomes t…

Okay but what's a better system?

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#252

Post by only-one1701 » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 11:49 PM UTC

CSMastermind wrote: post #251

devsda wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a prominent subset of the tech crowd who are ladder climbers - ruthlessly pursuing what is rewarded with pay/title/prestige without regard to actually making good stuff. I think the hiring and reward practices of the organizations & the industry as a whole also encourages this sort of behavior. When you reward people who are switching too often or only when moving internally/externally, switching becomes t…

Okay but what's a better system?

Ideally it's the responsibility of management, starting at the top, to think critically about what kind of software most benefits the company and reward those that do it. Unfortunately, it's much harder to sell "amazing documentation and test coverage" to a CEO than "Gen AI wrapper that doesn't really do much", so here we are.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#253

Post by megadata » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 11:51 PM UTC

devsda wrote: post #215

bsimpson wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a prominent subset of the tech crowd who are ladder climbers - ruthlessly pursuing what is rewarded with pay/title/prestige without regard to actually making good stuff. There are countless kidding-on-the-square jokes about projects where the innovators left at launch and passed it off to the maintenance team, or where a rebrand was in pursuit of someone's promo project. See also, killedbygoogle.com.

> There is a prominent subset of the tech crowd who are ladder climbers - ruthlessly pursuing what is rewarded with pay/title/prestige without regard to actually making good stuff. I think the hiring and reward practices of the organizations & the industry as a whole also encourages this sort of behavior. When you reward people who are switching too often or only when moving internally/externally, switching becomes t…

> reward practices

Yes. People are incentivized to do very stupid things to grab this years bonus or promotion.

See Google intentionally degrading search results for example. The resentment and loathing for Google is at all time high.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#254

Post by zeusk » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 11:53 PM UTC

taco_emoji wrote: post #103

jimbokun wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some fundamental constraint keeping it from happening? What cognitive capability do humans have that machines won't be able to replicate in that time frame? Each remaining barrier has been steadily falling.

What barriers have fallen? Computers still can't even drive cars

Something that requires a lot less than a PhD

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#255

Post by cj » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 11:57 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #248

marricks wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is funny because the CEO level one is the easiest to automate

Steve Jobs said something to the effect that he made maybe three CEO decisions a year. I mean, I think these are decisions like, "We're going to open our own line of Apple retail stores", but, still.

Being a CEO isn’t all that different from being a parent of a child from the POV of impactful decisions.

How many critical “parental decisions” have you made in the past week? Probably very few (if any), but surely you did a lot of reinforcement of prior decisions that had already been made, enforcing rules that were already set, making sure things that were scheduled were completed, etc.

Important jobs don’t always mean constantly making important decisions. Following through and executing on things after they’re decided is the hard part.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#256

Post by toasterlovin » Fri, Mar 07, 2025, 11:58 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #25

strangescript wrote: post #7

I think they have realized that even if OpenAI is first, it won't last long so really its just compute at scale, which is something they already do themselves.

There is no moat in models (OpenAI). There is a moat in infra (hyperscalers, Azure, CoreWeave). There is a moat in compute platform (Nvidia, Cuda). Maybe there's a moat with good execution and product, but it isn't showing yet. We haven't seen real break out successes. (I don't think you can call ChatGPT a product. It has zero switching cost.)

> I don't think you can call ChatGPT a product. It has zero switching cost.

In consumer markets the moat is habits. The switching cost for Google Search is zero. The switching cost for Coke is zero. The switching cost for Crest toothpaste is zero. Yet nobody switches.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#257

Post by fsckboy » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 12:00 AM UTC

bsimpson wrote: post #184

Lerc wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had not encountered the phrase kidding-on-the-square before. Searching seems to reveal a spectrum of opinions as to what it means. It seems distinct to the 'It's funny because it's true' of darker humour. It seems to be more on a spectrum of 'Haha, only joking' where the joke teller makes a statement that is ambiguously humorous to measure the values of the recipients, or if they are not sure of the values of the r…

It's a phrase I learned from my mom/grandpa growing up. "On the square" means "but I also mean it."

"on the square" means "honest" in the same sense that "crooked" means dishonest. think of carpentry, if something is not on the square, it's crooked.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#258

Post by crazygringo » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 12:01 AM UTC

paxys wrote: post #36

DebtDeflation wrote: post #31

A couple of days ago it leaked that OpenAI was planning on launching new pricing for their AI Agents. $20K/mo for their PhD Level Agent, $10K/mo for their Software Developer Agent, and $2K/mo for their Knowledge Worker Agent. I found it very telling. Not because I think anyone is going to pay this, but rather because this is the type of pricing they need to actually make money. At $20 or even $200 per month, they'll…

It's pretty funny that OpenAI wants to sell access to a "PhD level" model at a price with which you can hire like 3-5 real human PhDs full-time.

Do they work 24/7?

Do you have to pay all sorts of overhead and taxes?

I mean, I don't think it's real. Yet. But for the same "skill level", a single AI agent is going to be vastly more productive than any real person. ChatGPT types out essays in seconds it would take me half an hour to write, and does it all day long.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#259

Post by mirekrusin » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 12:01 AM UTC

quantadev wrote: post #225

mirekrusin wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...unless you operate in China.

If DeepSeek is indeed a poisoned model, then they (China) will be aware not to ever trust any code it generates, or else they'll know what it's triggers are, and just not trigger it.

China is not using llms, people are.

Re: Microsoft is plotting a future without OpenAI

#260

Post by reverius42 » Sat, Mar 08, 2025, 12:06 AM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #72

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people should be fired. I want a tech company where people are there to make good products first and get paid second. And the pay should be good. The lifestyle comfortable. No grindset bullshit. But I am confident that if you only employ passionate people working their dream jobs you will excel.

> want a tech company where people are there to make good products first and get paid second. And the pay should be good. The lifestyle comfortable. No grindset bullshit Congratulations, you’ve invented the HR department in corporate America.

> make good products first and get paid second. And the pay should be good.

The better the pay, the more you will attract the people who are there for the pay first and making good products ... second or third or never. How do you combat that?