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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

#381

Post by achrono »

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?

It has become a hallmark of Western civilization to first of all Cover Your Ass, and where it gets exposed, to Pretend It's Covered, but when its photos get published, to Sincerely Apologize, and when pressed even more, to come out afresh with a Bold Pro-Coverage Vision and Commitment.

But maybe there's a further step that someone like OpenAI seems uniquely capable of evolving.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#382

Post by lucianbr »

hehdhdjehehegwv wrote: post #309
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.

It's funny to me to read now about employees of OpenAI being coerced or tricked or whatever. Didn't they threaten to resign en masse a few months ago, in total unquestioned support of Sam Altman? They pretty much walked into it, in my opinion.

That's not saying anything OpenAI or Altman do is excusable, no way. I just feel like there's almost no good guys in this story.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#383

Post by ergocoder »

ssklash wrote: post #210

Why anyone trusts Altman or OpenAI with something as societally consequential as AI is beyond me.

Sam is in a tough position.

OpenAI is worth 100B. At this level, a founder would have been worth $20B at least.

But Sam aren't getting any of that net worth but he gets all the bad reps that comes with running a 100B company.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#384

Post by baq »

jay-barronville wrote: post #97
madeofpalk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever it's worth (not much), Sam Altman did say they would do that > if any former employee who signed one of those old agreements is worried about it, they can contact me and we'll fix that too. very sorry about this. https://x.com/sama/status/1791936857594581428

This looks like proper accountability and righting your wrongs to me. Much respect to Sam. I hope this isn’t just a performance for the public.

Hope is not a process. Look at what he does not what he says. Actually you should go deaf whenever you see him opening his mouth.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#385

Post by istjohn »

8372049 wrote: post #212
ryandrake wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be surprised if anyone fell for that. "Oh, thanks, opposing counsel, I totally trust you to represent my interests over your employer's!"

Well, you can be surprised. It's surprisingly common, in my experience, to believe people who pretend they are on your side. One interesting and typical case that is documented through countless online videos is police interrogations, where the interrogator is usually an expert in making it seem he (or she) is on your side, despite how obvious it should be that they're not. "Can I get you a meal?", friendly tone, var…

> We can also mention the case of psychiatrists running the "Presence francaise" groups who, appointed to examine the prisoner, started off boasting they were great friends with the defense lawyer and claiming both of them (the lawyer and the psychiatrist) would get the prisoner out. All the prisoners examined by this method were guillotined. These psychiatrists boasted in front of us of this neat method of overcoming "resistance."

- The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#386

Post by mvdtnz »

treme wrote: post #343

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 woul…

[flagged]

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#387

Post by kzrdude »

a_wild_dandan wrote: post #303
spot5010 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's annoying that it insists on "proper" capitalization for github and so on ("GitHub"), I do revolt at this trademark injection into my autocompleter.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#388

Post by hluska »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #332
tedivm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

How is malwarebytes a startup? They were a thing when I was a baby!

Well that’s depressing. I was 27 years old when Mawarebytes was released.

Fuck, I’m old.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#389

Post by dllthomas »

herval wrote: post #289
dllthomas wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect not... provided it's a thing you could do anyway (and it isn't extortion or something).

You could claim you gave someone a contract and they didn’t sign it, so now they owe u a million bucks

I think you missed my proviso.

If you can do X in the first place, I don't think there's any general rule that you can't condition X on someone not signing a contract.

Re: Leaked OpenAI documents reveal aggressive tactics toward former employees

#390

Post by lucianbr »

simondotau wrote: post #139
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.

Writing in all lowercase is an aesthetic akin to an executive wearing jeans and a T-shirt. It is supposed to impart an air of self-confidence, that you don’t need to signal your seriousness in order to be taken seriously. However such signalling is harder to pull off than it seems, and most who try do it poorly because they don’t realise that the casual aesthetic isn't just a lack of care. Steve Jobs famously eschewe…

They have no clue which signals work and which don't, they just throw shit at the wall and see what sticks. Another "Sam" signaled his superiority by playing games during meetings with investors, and it seemed to work for him, until it didn't.

Also, how much is there to customize in a turtleneck? Seems like the same signal as a very expensive suit, "I have a lot of money", nothing more.

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