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Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

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Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#531

Post by croes »

g42gregory wrote: post #427
croes wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Will they have my interests in mind going forward? Will they devote all their energy in delivering the best, most advanced product to me? Sorry to burt you bubble but the primary motivation of a for-profit company is ... profit. If they make more money in screwing you, they will. Amazon, Google, Walmart, Microsoft, Oracle etc. The customer is never a priority, just a means to an end.

Absolutely. I totally agree with the sentiment. But, at least make an effort to pretend that you care! Give me something... OpenAI does not even pretend anymore. :-) The board was pretty clear. That's not a good sign for the customers.

Seems like MS tries to force Altman back in.

If they succeed, we'll see how much MS cares.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#532

Post by throwaway35i2 »

emptysongglass wrote: post #517
HAL3000 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has orchestrated two coups in different organizations, where the leadership did not align with the organization's interests and missions, I can assure you that the final stage of such a coup is not something that can be executed after just an hour of preparation or thought. It requires months of planning. The trigger is only pulled when there is sufficient evidence or justification for such action. Bui…

How are you still hireable? If I knew you orchestrated two coups at previous companies and I was responsible for hiring, you would be radioactive to me. Especially knowing that all that effort went into putting together a successful coup over other work. Coups, in general, are the domain of the petty. One need only look at Ilya and D'Angelo to see this in action. D'Angelo neutered Quora by pushing out its co-founder,…

Are you the sort of person that hires someone that can successfully organize a coup against corporate leadership?

It feels like there is an impedance mismatch here.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#533

Post by pokepim »

justcool393 wrote: post #519
wolverine876 wrote: post #46

> Angel investor Ron Conway wrote, "What happened at OpenAI today is a Board coup that we have not seen the likes of since 1985 when the then-Apple board pushed out Steve Jobs. It is shocking; it is irresponsible; and it does not do right by Sam & Greg or all the builders in OpenAI." With all sympathy and empathy for Sam and Greg, whose dreams took a blow, I want to say something about investors [edit: not Ron Conway…

it's hilarious how much people for no reason, want to defend the honor of Sam Altman and co. i mean ffs, the guy is not your friend and will definitely backstab you if he gets the opportunity. i'm surprised anyone can take this "oh woe is me i totally was excited about the future of humanity" crap seriously. these are SV investors here, morally equivalent to the people on Wall Street that a lot here would probably ho…

[dead]

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#534

Post by p1esk »

yeck wrote: post #507
p1esk wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ilya might be too concerned with AI safety to make significant progress on model quality improvement.

Isn't that a massive quality improvement though? How many applications for LLMs are not feasible right now because of the ability for models to be swayed of course by a gentle breeze? If AI is a ship with a sail, data is the wind and alignment is the equivalent of a rudder.

The ability for models to be (easily) swayed is a different problem. I don’t see how AI safety would help with that.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#535

Post by himaraya »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #527
himaraya wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100x first-round investment and lower multiples for subsequent rounds, so much less than $1T.

what do you mean? Are you saying that is part of the article of incorporation for for-profit Open AI?

> Returns for our first round of investors are capped at 100x their investment (commensurate with the risks in front of us), and we expect this multiple to be lower for future rounds as we make further progress.

https://openai.com/blog/openai-lp

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#536

Post by jjfoooo4 »

lancesells wrote: post #133
jjfoooo4 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI’s biggest issue is that it has no moat. The product is a simple interface to a powerful model, and it seems likely that any lead they have in the power of the model can be quickly overcome should they decrease R&D. The model is extremely simple to integrate and access - unlike something like Uber, where tons of complexity and logistics is hidden behind a simple interface, an easy interface to OpenAI’s model ca…

> OpenAI’s biggest issue is that it has no moat. This just isn't true. They have the users, the customers, Microsoft, the backing, the years ahead of most, and the good press. It's like saying Uber isn't worth anything because they don't own their cars and are just a middleman. Maybe that now changes since they fired the face of the company, and the press and sentiment turns on them.

Uber has multiple moats: The mutually supporting networks of drivers and riders, as well as the regulatory overhead of establishing operations throughout their many markets.

OpenAI is an API you put text into and get text out of. As soon as someone makes a better model, customers can easily swap out OpenAI. In fact they are probably already doing so, trying out different models or optimizing for cost.

The backing isn’t a moat. They can outspend rivals and maintain a lead for now, but their model is likely being extensively reverse engineered, I highly doubt they are years ahead of rivals.

Backers want to cash out eventually, there’s not going to be any point where OpenAI is going to crowd out other market participants.

Lastly, OpenAI doesn’t have the users. Google, Amazon, Jira, enterprise_product_foo has the users. All are frantically building context rich AI widgets within their own applications. The mega cos will use their own models, others will find they can use an open source model with the right context does just fine, even if not as powerful as the best model out there.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#537

Post by jacquesm »

eganist wrote: post #483
jacquesm wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Altman was doing something that ran directly against the mission of OpenAI in a way that all of the other stuff that OpenAI has been doing so far did not then I haven't seen it. OpenAI has been off-script for a long time now (compared to what they originally said) and outwardly it seemed the board was A-Ok with that. Now we either see a belated - and somewhat erratic - response to all that went before or there is…

> then I haven't seen it Unless I'm missing something, this stands to reason if you don't work there. Kinda like how none of us are privy to anything else going on inside the company. We're all speculating in the end, and it's healthy to have an open mind about what's going on without preconceived notions.

Have a look at the latest developments and tell me that again...

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#538

Post by concordDance »

roguecoder wrote: post #459
DebtDeflation wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the issue was a technical difference of opinion regarding whether transformers alone were needed or other architectures required. It seems the split was over speed of commercialization and Sam's recent decision to launch custom GPTs and a ChatGPT Store. IMO, the board miscalculated. OpenAI won't be able to pursue their "betterment of humanity" mission without funding and they seemingly just pissed off t…

Making humanity’s current lives worse to fund some theoretical future good (enriching himself in the process) is some highly impressive rationalisation work.

> Making humanity’s current lives worse to fund some theoretical future good

Note that this clause would describe any government funded research for example.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#539

Post by pvaldes »

meroes wrote: post #249

Why has no one on HN considered it has to do with sexually assaulting his sister when they were young? https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QDczBduZorG4dxZiW/sam-altman... My other main guess is his push for government regulation being seen as stifling AI growth or even collusion with unaligned actors by the more scienc-y side and got him ousted by them.

> Why has no one on HN considered it has to do with ...

Maybe because this was not proven in a court still, and "innocent until proven guilty" is still a basic concept that must be preserved.

So a big "allegedly" must be placed here.

Re: Details emerge of surprise board coup that ousted CEO Sam Altman at OpenAI

#540

Post by concordDance »

Rzor wrote: post #497
roguecoder wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making humanity’s current lives worse to fund some theoretical future good (enriching himself in the process) is some highly impressive rationalisation work.

Try to tell that to the Effective Altruism crowd.

Literally any investment is a divert of resources from the present (harming the present) to the future. E.g. planting grains for next year rather than eating them now.
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