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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

#321

Post by 01100011 »

wayeq wrote: post #175
minimaxir wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semi off-topic, but the trend of AI influencers adopting the all-lowercase communication style in professional conversation has been very annoying. It makes them appear completely unserious. I recently received an job recruitment email for an AI role in all-lowercase and I was baffled how to interpret it.

i've been mostly using all lowercase for decades.. am i the asshole?

right? as i said in my other comment, this has been a thing since at least the 80s when i got behind a keyboard.

i don't normally do it anymore, but for this post i've gone sans-caps. kickin it old school. (yaimadork)

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#322

Post by Terr_ »

tedivm wrote: post #286
Terr_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also notice he conditions it on "any former employee." What about current employees who may be affected by the same legalese? Either way, I can imagine a subtext of "step forward and get a target on your back."

Current employees rarely sign exit agreements, since by exiting they stop being employees.

True, they can't renegotiate agreements that don't yet exist.

However the fact that the corporate leadership could even make those threats to not-yet-departed employees indicates that something is already broken or missing in the legal relationship with current ones.

A simple example might for the company to clearly state in their handbook--for all current employees--that vested shares cannot be clawed back.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#324

Post by hughesjj »

ixaxaar wrote: post #184
croes wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Edit: Looks like they're doing the right thing here That's like P.Diddy saying I'm sorry. That's damage control for being caught doing something bad ... again.

Extreme pinky swear.

"Trust me bro, if it weren't up to me you wouldn't even have to sign that contract. I mean it is up to me, but, like, I won't enforce the thing I made you sign. What? No I won't terminate the contract why don't you trust me bro? I thought we were a family?"

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#325

Post by ungreased0675 »

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".

Anytime someone tried to get me to sign a terrible contract, they always said “This is just standard stuff.”

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#326

Post by LocutusOfBorges »

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #11
mateus1 wrote: post #4

What surprises me about these stories surrounding openAI is how they apologize while lying and downplaying any blame. Do they expect anybody to believe they didn’t know about clawback clauses?

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…

Honestly, from a moderation perspective, the dropoff has been stark - the quality of work behind the scenes has dropped off a cliff on most larger subreddits, and the quality of the content those subreddits facilitate has reduced in quality in turn.

It's definitely had a very impact - but since it's not one that's likely to hit the bottom line in the short term, it's not like it matters in any way beyond the user experience.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#327

Post by hughesjj »

warcher wrote: post #202
lobsterthief wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Redditor for 15 years and the API thing was the last straw. I didn’t post about not engaging with or using the platform anymore. Nor did I delete my account, since it still holds some value to me. But I slinked away into the darkness and now HN is my social media tool.

Delete early, delete often. Never keep an old Reddit account around. I torch mine and build anew every year just out of principle.

For me it's been every six months. I've even given some creds for burned accounts to the void for the heck of it.

That said, I think you could easily correlate my hn activity with my reddit usage (inverse proportionality). Loving it tbh, higher quality content overall and better than slashdot ever was

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#328

Post by zaptheimpaler »

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…

That really is not enough. Now that they have been publicly embarrassed and the clause is common knowledge they really have to undo the mistake. If they didn't, they would look like a horrible employer and employees would start valuing their stock at $0, dropping their effective compensations by a ton and then people will leave. Given the situation, undoing the agreement is an act of basic self-preservation at this point.

The documents show this really was not a mistake and "I didn't know what the legal documents I signed meant, which specifically had a weird clause that standard agreements don't" isn't much of a defence either. The whole thing is just one more point in favor of how duplicitous the whole org is, there are many more.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#329

Post by whaleofatw2022 »

comp_throw7 wrote: post #269
whaleofatw2022 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: Looks like they're doing the right thing here: > Altman’s initial statement was criticized for doing too little to make things right for former employees, but in an emailed statement, OpenAI told me that “we are identifying and reaching out to former employees who signed a standard exit agreement to make it clear that OpenAI has not and will not cancel their vested equity and releases them from nondisparageme…

Plenty of legitimate things to criticize EA for, no need to smear them by association with someone who's never claimed to be an EA and hasn't obviously behaved like one either.

To be clear I'm saying he's an effective accelerationist not an effective altruist.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#330

Post by dataflow »

jiggawatts wrote: post #181

I've learned to interpret anything Sam Altman says as-if an Aes Sedai said it. That is: every word is true, but leads the listener to making false assumptions. Even if in this specific instance he means well, it's still quite entertaining to interpret his statements this way: "we have never clawed back anyone's vested equity" => But we can and will, if we decide to. "nor will we do that if people do not sign a separa…

> We're removing nondisparagement clauses from our standard departure paperwork

How would you interpret this part?

> and we're releasing former employees from existing nondisparagement obligations unless the nondisparagement provision was mutual.

This is interesting - was it mutual for most people?

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