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Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

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Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#32
post #8

If anything this is a power grab by the board away from Microsoft. Optimistically, this could be an attempt to return OpenAI to its original status as a true non-profit company. OpenAI lost most of its openness under Sam. They needed the Microsoft investment before GPT scaling was proven out. I imagine many entities would be willing to put money into a truly open research lab given OpenAI’s track record.

Microsoft gave them billions of dollars and access to lots of high performance compute, why would the board want to jeopardize that now?

"Gave" is the operative term here. It only matters what will Microsoft offer in the future.

OpenAI (the board that made this decision) is still ultimately a non-profit, so it's possible that interests might not be aligned.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#33

Link to MS statement https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/11/17/a-statement-from... In my opinion, I'd say the shortness and lack of details backs up the story that they had no idea. You'd see way more words if a marketing department had it's hands on something like this. This was 100% a get something out asap job.

I don’t see any verbiage that implies Microsoft had no idea. If Microsoft was the aggressor, of course they would play dumb and disclose as little as possible.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#34

Link to MS statement https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2023/11/17/a-statement-from... In my opinion, I'd say the shortness and lack of details backs up the story that they had no idea. You'd see way more words if a marketing department had it's hands on something like this. This was 100% a get something out asap job.

Yup this is definitely a "our stock has fallen 2% on the news, hurry up and say something to investors!" kind of letter.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#35

> Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, learned that OpenAI was ousting CEO Sam Altman just a minute before the news was shared with the world, according to a person familiar with the situation. Well this probably disproves the theory that it was a power grab by Microsoft. It didn’t make too much sense anyway since they already have access to tech behind GPT and Microsoft doesn’t necessarily need the clou…

The "coup by MSFT" conspiracy theory made no sense. Microsoft has an insanely good deal with OpenAI:

    * Exclusive access to resell OpenAI's technology and keep nearly all of that revenue for themselves, both cloud and services
    * Receive 75% of OpenAI's profits up to $1 trillion

All they had to do is not rock the boat and let the golden goose keep laying eggs. A massive disruption like this, so soon after DevDay would not fit that strategy.

My guess at this point is financial malfeasance, either failing to present a deal to the board or OpenAI has been in financial straits and he was covering it up.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#36

Are all the rumors on social media sites considered out of bound on HN? They seem fairly plausible given the known circumstantial evidence floating around.

What are the rumors? In this case I think nothing is out of bound, including Skynet in the building.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#37

Are all the rumors on social media sites considered out of bound on HN? They seem fairly plausible given the known circumstantial evidence floating around.

Skunkworks in the basement achieved AGI 6 months ago. Board left in the dark until they got an eight-figure electric bill. Now the entire company is in the dark.

I mean, if they don't come out and explain what happened, they can't be surprised when people "hallucinate" all kinds of random, preposterous explanations.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#38

Are all the rumors on social media sites considered out of bound on HN? They seem fairly plausible given the known circumstantial evidence floating around.

What are the rumors? In this case I think nothing is out of bound, including Skynet in the building.

They related to his personal and familial life and are about as bad as it gets, well apart from murder and torture or something, but fairly close.

Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman

#39

I think this strengthens my theory that the AI safety true believers wrestled control away from the entrepreneurs. The Open AI board letter, representing just 4 people, screams butt hurt and personal disagreements. Microsoft, who just finished building OpenAI’s models into every core product, was blindsided. The chairman of the OpenAI board, Greg Brockman, another startup exec was pushed out at the same time. Eric Sc…

Yeah I think this makes the most sense
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