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OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

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Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#491

Post by SeanAnderson »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #458
SeanAnderson wrote: post #40

I woke up and the first thing on my mind was, "Any update on the drama?" Did not expect to see this whole thing still escalating! WOW! What a power move by MSFT. I'm not even sure OpenAI will exist by the end of the week at this rate. Holy moly.

Seems more damage control than power move. I'm sure their first choice was to reinstate Altman and get more control over OpenAI governance. What they've achieved here is temporarily neutralizing Altman/Brockman from starting a competitor, at the cost of potentially destroying OpenAI (who they remain dependent on for next couple of years) if too many people quit. Seems a bit of a lose-lose for MSFT and OpenAI, even if…

Disagree. MSFT extending an open invitation to all OpenAI employees to work under sama at a subsidiary of MSFT sounds to me like it'll work well for them. They'll get 80% of OpenAI for negative money - assuming they ultimately don't need to pay out the full $10B in cloud compute credits.

Competitors should be fearful. OpenAI was executing with weights around their ankles by virtue of trying to run as a weird "need lots of money but cant make a profit" company. Now they'll be fully bankrolled by one of the largest companies the world has ever seen and empowered by a whole bunch of hypermotivated-through-retribution leaders.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#492

Post by roflyear »

Kye wrote: post #272
boringg wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the board needs to come clean on why they fired Sam Altman if they are going to weather this storm.

They might not be able to if the legal department is involved. Both in the case of maybe-pending legal issues, and because even rich people get employment protections that make companies wary about giving reasons.

"Even rich people?" - especially rich people, as they are the ones who can afford to use laws to protect themselves.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#494

Post by postmodest »

jacquesm wrote: post #341
boh wrote: post #312

There can exist an inherent delusion within elements of a company, that if left unchallenged, can persist. An agreement for instance, can seem airtight because it's never challenged, but falls apart in court. The OpenAI fallacy was that non-profit principals were guiding the success of the firm, and when the board decided to test that theory, it broke the whole delusion. Had it not fully challenged Altman, the board…

Yes, indeed and that's the real loss here: any chance of governing this properly got blown up by incompetence.

Ignoring "Don't be Ted Faro" to pursue a profit motive is indeed a form of incompetence.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#495

Post by autaut »

Years from now we will look back to today as the watershed moment when ai went from technology capable of empowering humanity, to being another chain forged by big investors to enslave us for the profits of very few ppl.

The investors (Microsoft and the Saudi’s) stepped in and gave a clear message: this technology has to be developed and used only in ways that will be profitable for them.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#496

Post by itsoktocry »

bartread wrote: post #435
boh wrote: post #312

There can exist an inherent delusion within elements of a company, that if left unchallenged, can persist. An agreement for instance, can seem airtight because it's never challenged, but falls apart in court. The OpenAI fallacy was that non-profit principals were guiding the success of the firm, and when the board decided to test that theory, it broke the whole delusion. Had it not fully challenged Altman, the board…

> pressure Altman to limit his side-projects People keep talking about this. That was never going to happen. Look at Sam Altman's career: he's all about startups and building companies. Moreover, I can't imagine he would have agreed to sign any kind of contract with OpenAI that required exclusivity. Know who you're hiring; know why you're hiring them. His "side-projects" could have been hugely beneficial to them over…

>His "side-projects" could have been hugely beneficial to them over the long term.

How can you make a claim like this when, right or wrong, Sam's independence is literally, currently, tanking the company? How could allowing Sam to do what he wants benefit OpenAI, the non-profit entity?

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#497

Post by alentred »

lawlessone wrote: post #471

Have seen a lot of criticism of Sam and of other CEO's But I don't think I have seen/heard of a CEO this loved by the employees. Whatever he is, he must be pleasant to work with.

I don't know, is it about being loved by the employees, or the employees being desperate about the alternative?

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#498

Post by airstrike »

joshstrange wrote: post #308

Well I give up. I think everyone is a "loser" in the current situation. With Ilya signing this I have literally no clue what to believe anymore. I was willing to give the board the benefit of the doubt since I figured non-profit > profit in terms of standing on principal but this timeline is so screwy I'm done. Ilya votes for and stands behind decision to remove Altman, Altman goes to MS, other employees want him bac…

> I think everyone is a "loser" in the current situation.

On the margin, I think the only real possible win here is for a competitor to poach some of the OpenAI talent that may be somewhat reluctant to join Microsoft. Even if Sam'sAI operates with "full freedom" as a subsidiary, I think, given a choice, some of the talent would prefer to join some alternative tech megacorp.

I don't know that Google is as attractive as it once was and likely neither is Meta. But for others like Anthropic now is a great time to be extending offers.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#499

Post by ChildOfChaos »

What a mess.

I genuinely feel like this is going to set back AI progress by a decent amount, while everyone is racing to catch OpenAI I was still expecting them to keep a reasonable lead. If OpenAI falls apart, this could delay progress by a couple of years.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#500

Post by CyanLite2 »

hospitalJail wrote: post #413
tarruda wrote: post #246

The whole thing starts to look like a coup orchestrated by Microsoft

A few weeks ago my 4yr old Minecraft gamer was playing pretend and said "I'm fighting the biggest boss. THE MICROSOFT BOSS!" Yeah M$ hasnt had a good reputation. I finally left Windows this year because I'm afraid of them after Win11. 2023/4 will be the year of the Linux Desktop in retrospect. (or at least my family's religion deemed it)

I was wondering how many lines I'd have to scroll down in the comments to see a "M$" reference here on HackerNews.

They're a $2+ trillion dollar company. They're doing something right.

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