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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

#551

Post by nostrademons »

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…

Could be a way to get backdoor-acquihired by Microsoft without a diligence process or board approval. Open up what they have accomplished for public consumption; kick off a massive hype cycle; downplay the problems around hallucinations and abuse; negotiate fat new stock grants for everyone at Microsoft at the peak of the hype cycle; and now all the problems related to actually making this a sustainable, legal technology all become Microsoft's. Manufacture a big crisis, time pressure, and a big opportunity so that Microsoft doesn't dig too deeply into the whole business.

This whole weekend feels like a big pageeant to me, and a lot doesn't add up. Also remember that Altman doesn't hold equity in OpenAI, nor does Ilya, and so their way to get a big payout is to get hired rather than acquired.

Then again, both Hanlon's and Occam's razor suggest that pure human stupidity and chaos may be more at fault.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#552

Post by culi »

augustulus wrote: post #540
tyrfing wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 board members (joined by Ilya Sutskever, who is publicly defecting now) found themselves in a position to take over what used to be a 9-member board, and took full control of OpenAI and the subsidiary previously worth $90 billion. Speculation is just on motivation, the facts are easy to establish.

tangentially, it’s an absolute disgrace that non-profits are allowed to have for-profit divisions in the first place

This was actually a pretty recent change from 2018. iirc it was actually Newman's Own that set the precedent for this:

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/newmans-philanthropic-excepti...

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#553

Post by davoneus »

CyanLite2 wrote: post #500
hospitalJail wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you shove a bunch of $100 dollar bills on a thorn tree, it doesn't make it any less dangerous or change it's fundamental nature.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#554

Post by culi »

augustulus wrote: post #540
tyrfing wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 board members (joined by Ilya Sutskever, who is publicly defecting now) found themselves in a position to take over what used to be a 9-member board, and took full control of OpenAI and the subsidiary previously worth $90 billion. Speculation is just on motivation, the facts are easy to establish.

tangentially, it’s an absolute disgrace that non-profits are allowed to have for-profit divisions in the first place

This was actually a pretty recent change from 2018. iirc it was actually Newman's Own that set the precedent for this:

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/newmans-philanthropic-excepti...

> Introduced in June of 2017, the act amends the Revenue Code to allow private foundations to take complete ownership of a for-profit corporation under certain circumstances:

    The business must be owned by the private foundation through 100 percent ownership of the voting stock.
    The business must be managed independently, meaning its board cannot be controlled by family members of the foundation’s founder or substantial donors to the foundation.
    All profits of the business must be distributed to the foundation.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#556

Post by ergocoder »

anonylizard wrote: post #257
gadders wrote: post #129

I think it was Mark Zuckerberg that described (pre-Elon) Twitter as a clown car that fell into a gold mine. Reminds me a bit of the Open AI board. Most of them I'd never heard of either.

This makes the old twitter look like the Wehrmacht in comparison. The old twitter did not decide to randomly detonate themselves when they were worth $80 billion. In fact they found a sucker to sell to, right before the market crashed on perpetually loss-making companies like twitter.

The benefit of having incentive-aligned board, founders, and execs.

Even the clown car isn't this bad.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#557

Post by ric2b »

Fluorescence wrote: post #338
nottheengineer wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds a lot like MS wants to have OpenAI but without a boards that considers pesky things like morals.

Time for a counter-counter-coup that ends up with Microsoft under the Linux Foundation after RMS reveals he is Satoshi...

The year of the Linux Microsoft.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#558

Post by jacquesm »

empath-nirvana wrote: post #186
jmyeet wrote: post #79

I said this on Friday: the board should be fired in its entirety. Not because the firing was unjustified--we have know real knowledge of that--but because of how it was handled. If you fire your founder CEO you need to be on top of messaging. Your major customers can't be surprised. There should've been an immediate all hands at the company. The interim or new CEO should be prepared. The company's communications team…

There's no one to fire the board. They're not accountable to anyone but themselves. They can burn down the whole company if they like.

> They can burn down the whole company if they like.

That's well under way I would say.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#559

Post by deelowe »

nostrademons wrote: post #551
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…

Could be a way to get backdoor-acquihired by Microsoft without a diligence process or board approval. Open up what they have accomplished for public consumption; kick off a massive hype cycle; downplay the problems around hallucinations and abuse; negotiate fat new stock grants for everyone at Microsoft at the peak of the hype cycle; and now all the problems related to actually making this a sustainable, legal techno…

This seems really dangerous. What's to stop top talent from simply choosing a different suitor?
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