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Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

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Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#381

Post by [deleted] »

cornholio wrote: post #366
ricardobeat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this kind of thinking seems to be the exact reason he was pushed away. “The future” as envisioned by a megacorp might not be that great.

I'm not sure I follow this chain of arguments, which I hear often. So, a technology becomes possible, that has the potential to massively disrupt social order - while being insanely profitable to those who employ it. The knowledge is already out there in scientific journals, or if it's not, it can be grokked via corporate espionage or paying huge salaries to the employees of OpenAI or whoever else has it. What exactl…

[deleted]

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#382

Post by rdtsc »

Legend2440 wrote: post #325
9dev wrote: post #288

I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…

OpenAI's ideas of humanities best interests were like a catholic mom's. Less morals are okay by me.

> OpenAI's ideas of humanities best interests were like a catholic mom's

How do you mean? Don’t see what OpenAI has in common with Catholicism or motherhood.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#383

Post by saagarjha »

sekai wrote: post #179
mirzap wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Satya will probably allow them to run a startup under the MS umbrella without interference and with full MS backing.

Yeah... Not really how a mega-corp like MSFT does things. They LOVE to have control.

Microsoft seems to be the best of the mega-corps at that.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#384

Post by rjtavares »

shubhamjain wrote: post #99

Have to give it to Satya. There's a thin possibility that Microsoft would have to write-off its whole $10B (or more?) investment in OpenAI, but that isn't Satya's focus. The focus is on what he can do next. Maybe, recruit the most formidable AI team in the world, removed from the shackles of an awkward non-profit owning a for-profit company? Give enough (cash) incentives and most of OpenAI employees would have no qua…

This whole weekend will probably be a case study in both Corporate Governance (Microsoft may look bad here for not anticipating the problem) and Negotiation (a masterclass by Satya: gave Ilya what he wanted and got most of OpenAI's commercial potential anyway).

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#385

Post by ybob »

Satya just pulled best move of 2023. Gets the hot names, whoever will follow Sam and Greg, to work in a startup like cocoon. Throws money at them, which is peanuts to Microsoft, both stock to keep them and unlimited compute. Sam wants to do custom chips? Do it with Microsofts money, size and clout. All doors are open. The new Maia100 chip can soon be followed by Sam200. Brings innovation and makes the company more attractive to future hires. Who cares if Same leaves after 2 years? Maybe that was part of the discussions, Satya wont be around forever and doesn't really have a good allround replacement inhouse. MSFT stock meanwhile goes from sideways movement to another all time high and onto 400. Genius move, would have never thought Sam accepts such arrangement but it makes sense.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#386

Post by altacc »

9dev wrote: post #288

I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…

I had hoped nobody read cyberpunk books and thought that was a description of utopia but consistently we see billionaires trying to act out the sci-fi novels from their youth or impose dystopian world views from Ayn Rand.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#388

Post by zamalek »

impulser_ wrote: post #118

I'm guessing this is the end of OpenAI. People aren't going to want to work at OpenAI anymore due to the value destruction that just occurred. It's going to be hard for them to raise money now because of the bad rep they have now. It going to be hard for them to hire top talent. You have two leaders, top engineers and researchers leaving the company. Google and Facebook come in a grab up any top talent that still the…

The Microsoft team going to churn out ChatGPT versions - which are the current valuation-makers. OpenAI is going to chase what comes after ChatGPT, pushing yet another ChatGPT is probably one of the reasons the researchers got fed up.

In my opinion. Best outcome for everyone involved.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#389

Post by nopromisessir »

_mh56 wrote: post #141

[This is not in response to the satya's tweet but the general articles or opinions in social media.] Please keep in mind that the articles you read are PR pieces, last few being from Sam's Camp. msft/sequioa/khosla has no power to remove the board or alter their actions. There is no gain for board by reinstating Sam and resigning themselves. swaying employees who have 900k$ comp is pretty hard. and not giving money t…

It was a negotiation.

Did they have power... Ofc they did. Otherwise... Why were they negotiating?

Its not about who had more power. They just couldn't find enough common ground.

Now Satya bagged talent. They don't have to rewrite the whole codebase due to IP msft has already secured.

I think those talks were real. You don't build something that long and then want to walk away unless huge differences came up. That's what we say.

(edit: rewritten after the comment I responded to added a game changing comment at the top) PR? I mean... That's just not how I would describe what happened.

It was a PR nightmare. They tried to keep the family together. Divorces happen. Satya brought the kids on so they can get a new sandbox going asap.

Don't believe Twitter? Now there...we agree. I'll add... Don't belive hackernews either.

Most of the reporting I saw was pretty good. It just didn't pan out. They reported the board was optimistic. Not that it was a sure thing.

(edit: full comment rewrite due to edit by the commentor which completely changed the context)

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#390

Post by mighmi »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #293
mighmi wrote: post #254

Can someone help me understand what Sam's actual value is? He doesn't seem to be a particularly important practitioner/researcher re: AI and is "just" a CEO/salesman-evangelist to get funding, which Microsoft doesn't need? Is he particularly apt at leading/managing research teams? OpenAI's slow productization doesn't imply he's a product/idea guy a la Jobs.

Hiring famous well known big names of the industry (even if they're useless and will just coast for crazy money) sends a strong signal to investors and will most likely boost MSFT stock price during this ongoing AI bubble. And once the AI bubble pops as everyone learns AGI indeed NOT 'around the corner' , Microsoft will silently let him go with a golden parachute in the 8 figure ballpark. At least that's what I learn…

This is a good point. I hadn't noticed Microsoft's share price dropping 20% on the initial announcement.
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