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Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

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Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#301

Post by asveikau »

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…

The right thing would be to not try to put that clause in there to begin with, not release employees from it when they get caught.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#302

Post by jsnell »

istjohn wrote: post #107

I wonder if this HN post will get torpedoed as fast as the one from yesterday[0]. 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435440

That post was, as far as I can tell, basically an opinion piece repeating/summarizing stories that had been on the HN frontpage dozens of times. This post is investigative journalism with significant new information.

It should not be surprising that the outcomes are different.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#303

Post by a_wild_dandan »

spot5010 wrote: post #209
ra7 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s only AI influencers that do this. I’ve noticed people use lowercase as some sort of power move. Like they’re so busy and important they don’t care about conventions.

Ironically, if you just kept the default keyboard settings on your phone, it will capitalize words for you. So these people changes the default settings to create this impression?

I disabled it for being annoying and frequently wrong. The idea that someone might interpret my laziness as a flex (or vise versa) is hilarious to me.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#304

Post by hluska »

owenmarshall wrote: post #137
squigz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's non-enforceable, but you signed it, wouldn't that make the contract void? I suppose there's probably a bunch of legalese to prevent that though...

Probably not enforceable != enforceable. Are you worth suing or does everyone sign? Are your state laws and jurisprudence going to back you up? If you are ever going to sign an employee agreement that binds you, consult with an employment attorney first. I did this with a past noncompete and it was the best few hundred I ever spent: my attorney talked with me for an hour about the particulars of my noncompete, pointe…

The single best professional decision I ever made was to get a business degree. The degree itself wasn’t worth a damn, but the network was invaluable. I have very close friends who are the exact kind of attorney who you would expect to have an undergraduate business degree. They’re greedy, combative people who absolutely relish these sorts of opportunities. And as a bonus, they are MY greedy, combative people who relish these sorts of opportunities.

They’re great partners when confronted with this kind of contract. And fundamentally, if my adversary/future employer retains counsel, I should too. Why be at a disadvantage when it’s so easy to pay money and be at even?

There are some areas my ethics don’t mesh with, but at the end of the day this is my work and I do it for pay. And when I look at results, lawyers are the best investment I have ever made.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#305

Post by influx »

tedivm wrote: post #28
NotSammyHagar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads like more than standard restrictions. I hate those like everyone, they are just intended to chill complaints in my opinion with enough question to scare average people without legal expertise (like me, like most devs), just like non-competes used to seemingly primarily be used to discourage looking at other jobs, separate from whether it was enforceable - note the recent FTC decision to end non-competes. A…

I have worked for multiple startups (Malwarebytes, Vicarious, Rad AI, Explosion AI, Aptible, Kenna Security). Not once have I seen an exit agreement that stated they would steal back my vested equity if I didn't sign. This is definitely not "standard restrictions".

I worked pre-ipo Uber with TK as CEO and they were bro-af and had nothing like this.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#306

Post by hehdhdjehehegwv »

solidasparagus wrote: post #54
5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they care? The mob will shout for a week or two and then turn their attention somewhere else. spez (the reddit chief) said something like that about their users, and he was absolutely right. A few days ago I was re-reading some of those threads about reddit API changes from ten months back where so many users claimed it was their last message and they were leaving for good. Almost none of them did. I checked two d…

It is hard to compete for high-end AI research and AI engineering talent. This definitely matters and they definitely should care. Their equity situation was already a bit of a barrier by being so unusual, now it's going to be a harder sell. I know extremely desirable researchers who refuse to work for Elon because of how he has historically treated employees. Repeated issues like this will slowly add OpenAI to that…

Meanwhile the stock Google pays you can be cashed out same day. Really dumb move for OpenAI.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#307

Post by treme »

istjohn wrote: post #107

I wonder if this HN post will get torpedoed as fast as the one from yesterday[0]. 0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40435440

PG is Altman's godfather more or less. I am disappoint of these OpenAI news as of late.

5. Sam Altman

I was told I shouldn't mention founders of YC-funded companies in this list. But Sam Altman can't be stopped by such flimsy rules. If he wants to be on this list, he's going to be.

Honestly, Sam is, along with Steve Jobs, the founder I refer to most when I'm advising startups. On questions of design, I ask "What would Steve do?" but on questions of strategy or ambition I ask "What would Sama do?"

What I learned from meeting Sama is that the doctrine of the elect applies to startups. It applies way less than most people think: startup investing does not consist of trying to pick winners the way you might in a horse race. But there are a few people with such force of will that they're going to get whatever they want.

https://paulgraham.com/5founders.html

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#308

Post by lotsofpulp »

whitej125 wrote: post #247
benreesman wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve heard of some pretty aggressive non-competes in finance, but AFAIU (never worked in Connecticut myself), it’s both the carrot and the stick: you get both paid and a stiff contract if you leave with proprietary alpha between the ears. In tech I’ve never even heard a rumor of something like this.

It’s got a term - “garden leave” and yeah it was prevalent in finance. I say “was” because I think some states are changing laws wrt/ non-competes and this calling this practice into question.

The federal government banned non competes last month:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/04/...

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#309

Post by hehdhdjehehegwv »

dontupvoteme wrote: post #42

It's really maddening just how right the board was.

The majority of employees didn’t care about a lying CEO or alignment research: they wanted the stock payoffs and Sam was the person offering it - end of the day that’s what happened with the coup.

Now Sam is seen as fucking with said stock, so maybe that isn’t panning out. Amazing surprise.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#310

Post by xwolfi »

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #22
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…

This reads like more than standard restrictions. I hate those like everyone, they are just intended to chill complaints in my opinion with enough question to scare average people without legal expertise (like me, like most devs), just like non-competes used to seemingly primarily be used to discourage looking at other jobs, separate from whether it was enforceable - note the recent FTC decision to end non-competes. A…

You did well: there is never a rule against one-off contract. I can assure you the CEO has a one-off contract, and that lawyer has a one-off contract, at the very least :D
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