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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

#561

Post by svnt »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #557
svnt wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good point. If a non profit whose board you sit on releases a product that competes with a product from the corporation you manage, how do you manage that conflict of interest? Seems he should have stepped down.

How does Poe compete with OpenAI? It's literally running OpenAI's models.

Poe forms a layer of indirection and customization above the models. They feed data through the api and record those interactions, siphoning off what would have been OpenAI customer data.

You could have maybe argued it either way until the most recent OpenAI updates, depending on what you thought OpenAI’s strategy would be, but since the release last week of ChatGPTs with roles they are now clearly in direct competition.

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

#562

Post by andybak »

bear141 wrote: post #521
emptysongglass wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I agree completely. People should oppose openly or leave.

Aren't you taking sides in a fight without knowing which side was "right"? Or do you believe that loyalty trumps all other values?

At this point I'm in danger of triggering Godwin's Law so I had better stop.

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

#563

Post by svnt »

loeber wrote: post #397
svnt wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really good point. If a non profit whose board you sit on releases a product that competes with a product from the corporation you manage, how do you manage that conflict of interest? Seems he should have stepped down.

Yeah, I just wrote about this as well on my substack. There were two significant conflicts of interest on the OpenAI board. Adam D'Angelo should've resigned once he started Poe. The other conflict was that both Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner were associated with another AI governance organization.

Thanks — the history of board participation you sleuthed is interesting for sure:

https://loeber.substack.com/p/a-timeline-of-the-openai-board

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

#564

Post by [deleted] »

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,…

[deleted]

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

#566

Post by s1artibartfast »

himaraya wrote: post #535
s1artibartfast wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So microsoft got in at round 1, and then round 2 for some nebulous multiple which may or may not be less than than.

These weasel words are not proof of anything

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

#567

Post by himaraya »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #566
himaraya wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

So microsoft got in at round 1, and then round 2 for some nebulous multiple which may or may not be less than than. These weasel words are not proof of anything

Microsoft's first-round investment totals $1bn at most. Nothing public substantiates a profit cap of $1tn.

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

#568

Post by peanuty1 »

deeviant wrote: post #292
fulladder wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Altman's not going to sue. Right now he has the high ground and the board is the one that looks petty and immature. It would be dumb for him to do anything that reverses this dynamic. Altman is going to move on and announce a new venture in the coming weeks. Whether that venture is in AI or not in AI will be very revealing about what he truly believes are the prospects for the space. Brockman and the others will like…

Altman is a major investor in the company behind the Humane AI Pin, which, does not inspire confidence for his ability to find a new home for his "brilliance."

He's also the founder and CEO of WorldCoin.

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

#569

Post by oska »

bear141 wrote: post #521
emptysongglass wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I agree completely. People should oppose openly or leave.

As you are new here, I would urge you to read the site's Guidelines [1], which the tone & wording of your comment indicate you have not read.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#570

Post by true_religion »

jacquesm wrote: post #544
cthalupa wrote: post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impossible to know what is going on, really. The Forbes article makes it sound like there is significant investment pressure in trying to get Altman back on board, and they likely have access to the board. It could very well be that the board themselves have no desire to bring Altman back, but these conversations ended up being the origin for the story that they did. It's also possible that the structure of the non-p…

Provided a good enough reason there were many ways in which the board could have fired Altman without making waves. They utterly f'd that up, and even if their original reasons were good the way they went about it made those reasons moot. They may have to re-instate Altman for optical reasons alone at this point and it would still be a net win. What an incredible shit show.

I don’t really see the point in not making waves. OpenAi is not a public company.

Optics and the like don’t really matter as much if you’re not a for profit company trying to chase down investors and customers. So long as OpenAi continues to be able to do research, it’s enough to fulfill their charter.

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