This whole debacle is a complete embarrassment and shredding the organisations credibility.
OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
291–300 of 1001 posts
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#292If they join Sam Altman and Greg Brockman at Microsoft they will not need to start from scratch because Microsoft has full rights [1] to ChatGPT IP. They can just fork ChatGPT. Also keep in mind that Microsoft hasn't actually given OpenAI $13 Billion because much of that is in the form of Azure credits. So this could end up being the cheapest acquisition for Microsoft: They get a $90 Billion company for peanuts. [1]…
Why does Microsoft have full rights to ChatGPT IP? Where did you get that from? Source?
That was a seriously dumb move on the part of OpenAI
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely agreed This is the point where I've realized I just have to wait until history is written, rather than trying to follow this in real time. The situation is too convoluted, and too many people are playing the media to try to advance their version of the narrative. When there is enough distance from the situation for a proper historical retrospective to be written, I look forward to getting a better view of…
Hah. I think you may be duped by history - the neat logical accounts are often fictions - they explain what was inexplicable with fabrications. Studying revolutions is revealing - they are rarely the invevitable product of historical forces, executed to the plans of strategic minded players... instead they are often accidental and inexplicable. Those credited as their masterminds were trying to stop them. Rather than…
It's a pretty interesting point to think about. Post-hoc explanations are clean, neat, and may or may not have been prepared by someone with a particular interpretation of events. While real-time, there's too much happening, too quickly, for any one person to really have a firm grasp on the entire situation.
On our present stage there is no director, no stage manager; the set is on fire. There are multiple actors - with more showing up by the minute - some of whom were working off a script that not everyone has seen, and that is now being rewritten on the fly, while others don't have any kind of script at all. They were sent for; they have appeared to take their place in the proceedings with no real understanding of what those are, like Rosencranz and Guildenstern.
This is kind of what the end thesis of War and Peace was like - there's no possible way that Napoleon could actually have known what was happening everywhere on the battlefield - by the time he learned something had happened, events on the scene had already advanced well past it; and the local commanders had no good understanding of the overall situation, they could only play their bit parts. And in time, these threads of ignorance wove a tale of a Great Victory, won by the Great Man Himself.
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#294It seems odd to have it described as “may resign.” Seems like the worst of all worlds. That’s like trying to create MAD with the position you “may” launch nukes in retaliation.
WSJ said "500 threaten to resign". "Threaten" lol!
WSJ says there are 770 employees total. This is all so bizarre.
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#295Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#296Can we have a quick moment of silence for Matt Levine? Between Friday afternoon and right now, he has probably had to rewrite today's Money Stuff column at least 5 or 6 times.
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#297From outside, it looks like a Microsoft coup to take over the company all together.
Never assume someone is winning a game of 5D chess when someone else could just be losing a game of checkers.
I highly doubt this was a coordinated plan from the start by Microsoft. I think what we're seeing here is a seasoned team of executives (Microsoft) eating a naive and inexperienced board alive after the latter fumbled.
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#298The key line: “Microsoft has assured us that there are positions for all OpenAl employees at this new subsidiary should we choose to join.”
So essentially, OpenAI is a sinking ship as long as the board members go ahead with their new CEO and Sam, Greg are not returning. Microsoft can absorb all the employees and switch them into the new AI subsidiary which basically is an acqui-hire without buying out everyone else's shares and making a new DeepMind / OpenAI research division inside of the company. So all along it was a long winded side-step into having…
And sue for the assets of OpenAI on account of the damage the board did to their stock... and end up with all of the IP.
Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#299Deservedly or not, Satya Nadella will look like a genius in the aftermath. He has and will continue to leverage this situation to strengthen MSFT's position. Is there word of any other competitors attempting to capitalize here? Trying to poach talent? Anything...
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Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns
#300The whole thing starts to look like a coup orchestrated by Microsoft
Somehow reminds me of Nokia...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7645482
frik on April 25, 2014:
> The Nokia fate will be remembered as hostile takeover. Everything worked out in the favor of Microsoft in the end. Though Windows Phone/Tablet have low market share, a lot lower than expected.
> * Stephen Elop the former Microsoft employee (head of the Business Division) and later Nokia CEO with his infamous "Burning Platform" memo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Elop#CEO_of_Nokia
> * Some former Nokia employees called it "Elop = hostile takeover of a company for a minimum price through CEO infiltration": https://gizmodo.com/how-nokia-employees-are-reacting-to-the-...
For the record: I don't actually believe that there is an evil Microsoft master plan. I just find it sad that Microsoft takes over cool stuff and inevitably turns it into Microsoft™ stuff or abandons it.