I don’t understand people calling this a coup. The board is setup with very few legal constraints and answers only to itself. If this was a coup (seizing power from the rightful holder), who was it against?
OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
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Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#272Neither of these reasons have anything to do with a lofty ideology regarding the safety of AGI or OpenAI’s nonprofit status. Rather it seems they are micromanaging personnel decisions. Also notice that Ilya Sutskever is presenting the reasons for the firing as just something he was told. This is important, because people were siding with the board under the understanding this firing was led by the head research scien…
Exactly my point why would d Angelo want openai to thrive when his own company poe(chatbot) wants compete in the same space. Its conflict of interest which ever way you look. He should resign from board of openai in the first place. The main point is greg, Ilya can get 50% vote and convince Helen toner to change decision. It's all done then it's 3 to 2 in board of 5 people. Unless greg board membership is reinstated.…
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Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
They would have just forked the code and maybe merged some changes back and forth, no real need for cross-platform code.
This was pre-1983. Forking wasn't a thing at the time. Any kind of code management was cutting edge, and cross-platform shared code wasn't even dreamed of yet.
Forking and merging is a social phenomenom. Sure git makes it easier, but nothing stopping anyone from just copying and pasting as appropriate. Not to mention diff(1) was invented in 1974, and diff3(1) in 1979, so there were already tools to help with this, even if not as well developed as modern tools.
I'm also pretty sure cross-platform code was a thing in 1983. Maybe not to the same extent and ease as now, but still a thing.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes these people should all be doing more to feed internet drama! If they don't act soon, HN will have all sorts of wild opinions about what's going on and we can't have that! Even worse, if we don't have near constant updates, we might realize this is not all that important in the end and move on to other news items! I know, I know, I shouldn't jest when this could have grave consequences like changing which uri you…
No serious company wants drama. Hopefully OpenAI is still a serious company. A statement from the CEO/the board is a standard descalation.
> No serious company wants drama
Unless you're TNT, cause they "know drama"
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#275What will happen to employee’s stock options if they all mass quit and moved to Microsoft? The options will be worth $0, right?
Microsoft would likely match their PPUs at the tender offer valuation.
Honestly MS don't have to, losing more than half the employees will destroy the value of the PPUs.
The fact so many have signed the petition is a classic example of game theory. If everyone stays, the PPU keep most of their value, the more people threaten to leave, the more attractive it is to sign. They don't have to love Sam or support him
Edit: actually thinking about it, the best outcome would to be go back on the threats to resign, increasing the value of PPUs, making Microsoft have to pay more to make them leave OpenAI
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#276So Surdkever fires Altman, then signs a letter saying they’ll quit unless he’s reinstated. There’s only 4 board members, right? Who wanted him fired. Is this a situation where they all thought the others wanted him fired and were just stupid? Have they been feeding motions into chatgpt and asking “should add I do this?”
Seems most likely Sustkever wanted him fired and then realized his mistake. Ultimately the board was probably quietly seething about the direction the company was headed, got mad enough to retake the reigns with that stunt and then realized what that actually meant. Now they are trying to unring the bell but cannot.
> Seems most likely Sustkever wanted him fired and then realized his mistake
We have as much evidence for this hypothesis as for any other. Not discrediting it. But let's be mindful of the fog of war.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#277Neither of these reasons have anything to do with a lofty ideology regarding the safety of AGI or OpenAI’s nonprofit status. Rather it seems they are micromanaging personnel decisions. Also notice that Ilya Sutskever is presenting the reasons for the firing as just something he was told. This is important, because people were siding with the board under the understanding this firing was led by the head research scien…
This is the most likely scenario. Adam wants to destroy OpenAI so that his poop AI has a chance to survive
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
More evidence the layoffs are 100% BS. Suddenly there's surplus headcount and magical budgets out of nothing, all to accommodate several hundreds of people with way-above-market-average TCs. It's almost like they were never in danger of hurting profit margins in the first place.
It is entirely reasonable for there to be dire financial straits that require layoffs, yet when a $10 billion investment suddenly blows up and has to be saved the money can be spent to fix it. In the first case it wasn't that there was no cash in the bank and no bank willing to make loans, but that the company needed to spend less than it earned in order to make a profit. In the second case it wasn't that the money h…
>It is entirely reasonable for there to be dire financial straits that require layoffs
It's not entirely reasonable because Microsoft's finances are public. We know they're doing fine.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
No serious company wants drama. Hopefully OpenAI is still a serious company. A statement from the CEO/the board is a standard descalation.
> No serious company wants drama "All PR is good PR" is a meme for a reason. Many cultures thrive on dysfunction, particularly the kind that calls attention to themselves.
That axiom is a relic from the pre-social media days. Nowadays, bad PR going viral can sink a company overnight.
Re: OpenAI's employees were given two explanations for why Sam Altman was fired
#280What will happen to employee’s stock options if they all mass quit and moved to Microsoft? The options will be worth $0, right?
From what I understand, Microsoft realizes this and gives them the equivalent of their OAI stock options in MSFT stock options if they join them now. For some employees, this may mean $10MM+
Options on Microsoft stock, a publicly-traded and stable company, are incomparable to those on OpenAI, which didn't even bother having proper equity to start with. The employees will get hosed. They never got equity, they got "equity." The senior ones will need liquidity, soon, to pay legal counsel; the rest will need to take what they can get.