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Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

arstechnica.com

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Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#301

Post by cornholio »

whatshisface wrote: post #270
threeseed wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The board's job is not to do right There is why you do something. And there is how you do something. OpenAI is well within its rights to change strategy even as bold as from a profit-seeking behemoth to a smaller research focused team. But how they went about this is appalling, unprofessional and a blight on corporate governance. They have blind-sided partners (e.g. Satya is furious), split the company into two cam…

I thought the for-profit AI startup with no higher purpose was OpenAI itself.

It is, only it has an exotic ownership structure. Sutskever has just used the features of that structure to install himself as the top dog. The next step is undoubtedly packing the board with his loyalists.

Whoever thinks you can tame a 100 billion dollar company by putting a "non-profit" in charge of it, clearly doesn't understand people.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#302

Post by gardenhedge »

jddj wrote: post #131
swatcoder wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A deal-making CEO who can carry rapport with the right people, make clever deals, and earn public trust can genuinely make a huge difference to a profit-seeking product company's trajectory. But when your profit-seeking company is owned by a non-profit with a public mission, that trajectory might end up pointed the wrong way. The Dev Day announcements, and especially the marketplace, can be seen as suggesting that's…

This is where I've ended up as well for now. I'm as distant from it all as anyone else, but I can easily believe the narrative that Ilya (et al.) didn't sign up there just to run through a tired page from the tech playbook where they make a better Amazon Alexa with an app store and gift cards and probably Black Friday sales.

And that is fine.. but why the immediate firing, why the controversy?

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#303

Post by deeviant »

wolverine876 wrote: post #65

In the past, many on HN complained that OpenAI had abandoned its public good mission and had morphed into a psuedo-private for-profit. If that was your feeling before, what do you think now? Are you relieved or excited? Are you the dog who caught the car? At this point, on day 2, I am heartened that their mission was most important, even at the heart of the most important technology maybe ever or since nuclear power…

You seem super optimistic that backstabbing power-plays will result improvement.

I see it far more likely that openAI will lock down its tech even more, in the name of "safety", but also predict it will always be possible to pay for their services never-the-less.

Nothing in this situation makes me think OpenAI will be any more "open."

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#304

Post by cthalupa »

exitb wrote: post #143
TheCleric wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you have something in writing or you have enough ownership to say no, I don’t see how you’d be able to stop it.

Microsoft reportedly invested 13 billion dollars and has a generous profit sharing agreement. They don’t have enough to control OpenAI, but does that mean the company can actively steer away from profit?

Yes. Microsoft had to sign an operating agreement when they invested that said the company has no responsibility or obligation to turn a profit. LLCs are able to structure themselves in such a way that their primary duty is not towards their shareholders.

https://openai.com/our-structure - check out the pinkish-purpleish box. Every investor and employee in the for-profit has to agree to this as a condition of their investment/employment.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#305

Post by zxndomisaaz2 »

mise_en_place wrote: post #236
threeseed wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The board's job is not to do right There is why you do something. And there is how you do something. OpenAI is well within its rights to change strategy even as bold as from a profit-seeking behemoth to a smaller research focused team. But how they went about this is appalling, unprofessional and a blight on corporate governance. They have blind-sided partners (e.g. Satya is furious), split the company into two cam…

Keep in mind that the rest of the board members have ties to US intelligence. Something isn't right here.

There had better be US intelligence crawling all over the AI space, otherwise we are all in very deep shit.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#306

Post by krisoft »

xvector wrote: post #244
gedy wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what's silly about "shepherding responsible AGI" is this is basically math, it's not some genie that can be kept hidden or behind some Manhattan Project level of effort. Pandora's box is open, and the best we can do is make sure it's not locked up behind some corporation or gov't.

Are you sure this is the case? Tens of billions of dollars invested, yet a whole year later no one has a model that even comes close to GPT-3.5 - let alone GPT-4 Turbo.

> yet a whole year later no one has a model that even comes close to GPT-3.5 - let alone GPT-4 Turbo

Is that true and settled? I only have my anecdotal experience, but in that it is not clear that GPT-3.5 is better than Google's bard for example.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#307

Post by dragonwriter »

threeseed wrote: post #216
wolverine876 wrote: post #46

> Angel investor Ron Conway wrote, "What happened at OpenAI today is a Board coup that we have not seen the likes of since 1985 when the then-Apple board pushed out Steve Jobs. It is shocking; it is irresponsible; and it does not do right by Sam & Greg or all the builders in OpenAI." With all sympathy and empathy for Sam and Greg, whose dreams took a blow, I want to say something about investors [edit: not Ron Conway…

> The board's job is not to do right There is why you do something. And there is how you do something. OpenAI is well within its rights to change strategy even as bold as from a profit-seeking behemoth to a smaller research focused team. But how they went about this is appalling, unprofessional and a blight on corporate governance. They have blind-sided partners (e.g. Satya is furious), split the company into two cam…

> split the company into two camps

The split existed long prior to the board action, and extended up into the board itself. If anything, the board action is a turning point toward decisively ending the split and achieving unity of purpose.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#308

Post by cthalupa »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #166
eastbound wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They knew it when they donated to a non-profit. In fact trying to extract profit from a 501c could be the core of the problem.

Microsoft didnt give money to a non-profit. They created a for profit company, and microsoft gave that company 11B, and Open AI gave it the technology. OpenAI shares ownership of that for-profit company with Microsoft and Early investors like Sam, Greg, Musk, Theil, Bezos, the employees of that company.

While technically true, in practicality, they did give money to the non-profit. The even signed an agreement stating that any investments should be considered more as donations, because the for-profit subsidiary's operating agreement is such that the charter and mission of the non-profit are the primary duty of the for-profit, not making money. This is explicitly called out in the agreement that all investors in and employees of the for-profit must sign. LLCs can be structured so that they are beholden to a different goal than the financial enrichment of their shareholders.

https://openai.com/our-structure

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#309

Post by swatcoder »

dragonwriter wrote: post #295
mikrl wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has the US ever stated or followed a policy of neutrality and openness? OpenAI positioned itself like that, much the same way Switzerland does in global politics.

> Has the US ever stated or followed a policy of neutrality Yes, most of the time from the founding until the First World War. > and openness? Not sure what sense of "openness" is relevant here.

Not at all. Prior to WWI, the US was aggressively and intentionally cleaning European interests out of the Western hemisphere. It was in frequent wars, often with one European power or another. It just didn't distract itself too much with squabbles between European powers over matters outside its claimed dominion.

Establishing a hemispheric sphere of influence was no act of neutrality.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#310

Post by sheepscreek »

Here’s another theory.

> the ousting was likely orchestrated by Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever over concerns about the safety and speed of OpenAI's tech deployment.

Who was first to launch a marketplace for GPTs/agents? It wasn’t OpenAI, but Poe by Quora. Guess who sits on the OpenAI non-profit board? Quora CEO. So at least we know where his interest lies with respect to the vote against Altman and Greg.

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