Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

Post by HaZeust » Thu, May 23, 2024, 1:53 AM UTC

lobsterthief wrote: post #105

IvyMike wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following convention and using standard capitalization rules makes things easier on the reader. Going to all-lowercase is harder on the reader, and thus is disrespectful of the reader. I will die on this hill.

THIS IS WHY I PREFER TO COMMUNICATE ONLY IN CAPITAL LETTERS. IT REMOVES ANY AMBIGUITY AS TO WHETHER OR NOT I’M ANGRY SINCE THE READER CAN ASSUME I’M ALWAYS SCREAMING IN THEIR FACE. I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING A NICE DAY.

Post by dmvdoug » Thu, May 23, 2024, 1:56 AM UTC

rachofsunshine wrote: post #217

JCM9 wrote: post #132

There’s a recurring pattern here of OpenAI getting caught red handed doing bad things and then being all like “Oh it was just a misunderstanding, nothing more, we’ll get on to fixing that ASAP… nothing to see here…” It’s becoming too much to just be honest oversights.

It's the correct counter-strategy to people who believe that you shouldn't attribute to malice what could be attributed to stupidity (and who don't update that prior for their history with a particular actor). And it works in part because things often are accidents - enough to give plausible deniability and room to interpret things favorably if you want to. I've seen this from the inside. Here are two HN threads abou…

Post by tptacek » Thu, May 23, 2024, 1:59 AM UTC

comp_throw7 wrote: post #204

tptacek wrote: post #179

I'm not following this very closely, but agreements that block employees from selling (private) vested equity are a market term, not something uniquely aggressive OpenAI does. The Vox article calls this "just as important" as the clawback terms, but, obviously, no.

> agreements that block employees from selling (private) vested equity are a market term They threatened to block the employee who pushed back on the non-disparagement from participating in tender offers, while allowing other employees to sell their equity (which is what the tender offers are for). This is not a "market term".

Post by skybrian » Thu, May 23, 2024, 2:00 AM UTC

rachofsunshine wrote: post #217

JCM9 wrote: post #132

There’s a recurring pattern here of OpenAI getting caught red handed doing bad things and then being all like “Oh it was just a misunderstanding, nothing more, we’ll get on to fixing that ASAP… nothing to see here…” It’s becoming too much to just be honest oversights.

It's the correct counter-strategy to people who believe that you shouldn't attribute to malice what could be attributed to stupidity (and who don't update that prior for their history with a particular actor). And it works in part because things often are accidents - enough to give plausible deniability and room to interpret things favorably if you want to. I've seen this from the inside. Here are two HN threads abou…

Post by comp_throw7 » Thu, May 23, 2024, 2:07 AM UTC

whaleofatw2022 wrote: post #233

tedivm wrote: post #6

If this really was a mistake the easiest way to deal with it would be to release people from their non disparagement agreements that were only signed by leaving employees under the duress of losing their vested equity. It's really easy to make people whole for this, so whether that happens or not is the difference between the apologies being real or just them just backpedaling because employees got upset. Edit: Looks…

> Edit: Looks like they're doing the right thing here: > Altman’s initial statement was criticized for doing too little to make things right for former employees, but in an emailed statement, OpenAI told me that “we are identifying and reaching out to former employees who signed a standard exit agreement to make it clear that OpenAI has not and will not cancel their vested equity and releases them from nondisparageme…