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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

#451

Post by raverbashing »

_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…

Except the board made themselves irrelevant with their antics

People will be looking at Sam now, and it wouldn't be surprised if half of OpenAI just migrates to MS now

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

#452

Post by loveparade »

nopromisessir wrote: post #389
_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…

"Talent secured"

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

#453

Post by maeil »

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…

On the contrary - I will now be actively looking for opportunities to join OpenAI, while I wasn't particularly interested beforehand.

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

#454

Post by Wurdan »

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.

Source for the below: Worked at Skype before and after the MS acquisition.

MSFT's control isn't as "hard" as you portray it to be. At the senior leadership level they're pretty happy to allow divisions quite a lot of autonomy. Sure there are broad directives like if you support multiple platforms/OSes then the best user experience should be on "our" platform. But that still leaves a lot of room for maneuverability.

Soft control via human resources and company culture is a whole other beast though. There are a lot of people with 20+ years of experience at Microsoft who are happy to jump on job openings for middle-management roles in the "sexy" divisions of the company - the ones which are making headlines and creating new markets. And each one that slides on in brings a lot of the lifelong Microsoft mindset with them.

So yeah working within MS will be a very different experience for Altman, but not necessarily because of an iron grip from above.

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

#455

Post by rdtsc »

imgabe wrote: post #340
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…

You might notice that Microsoft shareholders are also part of humanity and destroying humanity would be highly detrimental to Microsoft's profits, so maybe their interests are not as misaligned as you think. I am always bemused by how people assume any corporate interest is automatically a cartoon supervillain who wants to destroy the entire world just because.

> You might notice that Microsoft shareholders are also part of humanity and destroying humanity would be highly detrimental to Microsoft's profits

Will nobody think of the poor shareholders?

> I am always bemused by how people assume any corporate interest is automatically a cartoon supervillain.

It’s not any more silly than assuming corporate entities with shareholders will somehow necessarily work for the betterment of humanity.

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

#457

Post by slg »

bratbag wrote: post #433
Legend2440 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you put that in precise terms, rather than a silly analogy designed to play on peoples emotions? What exactly and precisely, with specifics, is in OpenAI's ideas of humanities best interests that you think are a net negative for our species?

I want the AI to do exactly what I say regardless of whether that is potentially illegal or immoral is usually what they mean.

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

#458

Post by shubhamjain »

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 am not claiming how right or wrong the final outcome would be, but owning the technology with a clear "for-profit" objective is definitely a better structure for Microsoft and for Sam Altman as well (considering, his plans for the future). I have no opinion on AI risk. I just think that a super valuable technology under a non-profit objective was simply an untenable structure, regardless of potential threats.

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

#459

Post by ah765 »

Arainach wrote: post #336
zurfer wrote: post #253

I don't buy it. If you listen to Sam and Greg, they want to change the world and bring us into a world of abundance that everyone can participate in. They were the ideators of this "awkward non-profit owning a for-profit company". Microsoft is setup to create shareholder value. That's it. Both of them will eventually find it moot to advance tech so a few folks get richer.

If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Sam's history is full of the worst parts of venture capital and startup mindset. He's only an idealist so far as he's good at selling the ideal outcome and drowning out any criticism.

I think that if Sam had followed the typical VC/Startup playbook (and he even wrote one), he never would have joined OpenAI, a nonprofit based on totally unproven tech at the time. He was already quite rich and powerful from YC, and decided to take a big risk on AI. I think there was at least some genuine idealism involved.

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

#460

Post by jampekka »

waihtis wrote: post #8

Anyone else find it strange that startup founders of the magnitude of Sam & Greg would join a gigantic corporation as employees? It sounds very out of line of what you'd expect.

Isn't the exit exactly what you'd expect from startup founders?
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