Microsoft has a "Cloud + AI" division [1]. I wouldn't be surprised to see Sam Altman at or near the top of that organization come Monday.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_engineering_groups#C...
Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
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Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
#42Microsoft (with thousands of lawyers on staff) invests $10B in a company and has no power or leverage over the decisions of a non-profit board headed by several names no one has heard of.
Come on. No way Microsoft’s team does a deal like that with 0 power or knowledge in a situation like this. That’s ludicrous.
Edit: the only case I can see for MSFT being truly blindsided is as follows. Elon is behind it. Sam and Elon have their breakup. Sam seems to win. They close the deal with MSFT, all is good. But Elon is intimately familiar with the corporate structure and all moves made historically, maybe even has some evidence of wrong-doing. There is probably only 1 person in the valley that could pressure the non profit to oust Sam (and by extension Greg) AND provide the financial/legal/power backing to see it through. It takes a lot money and influence to do this from the outside. That is really the only scenario I could see MSFT truly being blindsided for getting out-maneuvered by a dinky non-profit board.
Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are the rumors? In this case I think nothing is out of bound, including Skynet in the building.
They related to his personal and familial life and are about as bad as it gets, well apart from murder and torture or something, but fairly close.
I think those are already posted 100 times on the main thread, and discussed in detail. None of that is new so can't be the reason for something like this.
Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
#44I think this strengthens my theory that the AI safety true believers wrestled control away from the entrepreneurs. The Open AI board letter, representing just 4 people, screams butt hurt and personal disagreements. Microsoft, who just finished building OpenAI’s models into every core product, was blindsided. The chairman of the OpenAI board, Greg Brockman, another startup exec was pushed out at the same time. Eric Sc…
> The Open AI board letter, representing just 4 people, screams butt hurt and personal disagreements.
"screams butt hurt"? the board put out a blog post saying the CEO had lied so badly they'd insta-sacked him.
Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
#45I think this strengthens my theory that the AI safety true believers wrestled control away from the entrepreneurs. The Open AI board letter, representing just 4 people, screams butt hurt and personal disagreements. Microsoft, who just finished building OpenAI’s models into every core product, was blindsided. The chairman of the OpenAI board, Greg Brockman, another startup exec was pushed out at the same time. Eric Sc…
Not sure why you were downvoted. It is very hard to understand who really has power at OpenAI, and as of now half of the board consists of people whose biggest life accomplishment is somehow getting on the board.
Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
#46Greg Brockman has also left: https://twitter.com/gdb/status/1725667410387378559
What's with the lowercase? I think it's cute if someone is being deliberately low-effort, or trying to present that way, but IMO it's cringe to use it for consequential official statements like this.
Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
#47Microsoft (with thousands of lawyers on staff) invests $10B in a company and has no power or leverage over the decisions of a non-profit board headed by several names no one has heard of. Come on. No way Microsoft’s team does a deal like that with 0 power or knowledge in a situation like this. That’s ludicrous. Edit: the only case I can see for MSFT being truly blindsided is as follows. Elon is behind it. Sam and Elo…
This all feels very stupid on their part now looking at the board member names but I never saw this point raised before on HN. I guess nobody could predict this including MSFT.
Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
#48One "person familiar" is inappropriate sourcing for something so consequential. Not a good look for Axios.
In journalist speak, that means "credible person I know who would get fired if I said their name."
It's probably literally an exec on the OpenAI/Microsoft partnership.
The alternative to "a person familiar" is us as readers never get this information at all.
Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
They related to his personal and familial life and are about as bad as it gets, well apart from murder and torture or something, but fairly close.
I think those are already posted 100 times on the main thread, and discussed in detail. None of that is new so can't be the reason for something like this.
I understood it as there are additional and ongoing incidents and possible board was given hard evidence of such.
Re: Microsoft was blindsided by OpenAI's ouster of CEO Sam Altman
#50dupe? doesn't say much beyond what we learn in the actual release https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38309611
Well the first sentence in this news piece adds a lot more color to the official press release and stands out on its own:
"Microsoft, which has invested billions in OpenAI, learned that OpenAI was ousting CEO Sam Altman just a minute before the news was shared with the world, according to a person familiar with the situation."