Live data from Hacker News

The OpenAI graveyard: All the deals and products that haven't happened

forbes.com

61–70 of 208 posts

Re: The OpenAI graveyard: All the deals and products that haven't happened

#61

Has there ever been a period o time where people saw a bubble coming and that we were in one, but it just inexorably refused to pop/drug out this long? This isn’t a rhetorical question, I’m wondering how this period compares to other irrational periods of the economy like railroad fever etc.

The bubble bursting has almost become eschatological for deniers. Keep praying that it will happen. It won't.

Re: The OpenAI graveyard: All the deals and products that haven't happened

#63
"Disney’s then-CEO Bob Iger... was sold on Sora, too. He lauded Altman’s ability to “look around corners”..."

WTF is that supposed to mean? I'm sorry, maybe I'm being dense. I can't figure out what "look around corners" is supposed to mean. "Think outside the box," I guess? Why "look around corners?"

I mean, maybe I do get it. Altman has a weird face that looks like you can't predict where his eyes are based on where his head is. "Shifty," one might say. But I doubt that's what Iger meant.

It's dumb. It's dumb corporate speak. I'm so sick of this kind of stuff getting a pass. We used to bully people over using the word "synergy." Let's make america anti-corporate-weasel again.

Re: The OpenAI graveyard: All the deals and products that haven't happened

#66
Before he left I use to enjoy enraging a manager several layers above me. In one instance I explained that asking us to cut a few corners to get things done was fine, usually we can figure out acceptable ways of doing it. But then, it is your job to take those fake numbers and figure out how we are doing. No matter how much effort you make if bullshit goes in you know what will come out.

Now imagine an entire economy working like that. Like say, LLM's are good enough to run entire companies but you don't get to run a company because you are good at it. LLM's can perfectly manage employee schedules but the real job is more like marriage counseling or group therapy. Somewhere along the road we forgot which jobs make the economy go. They are probably the ones with the lowest salaries as those lack the effort of conjuring the job into existence.

Humanity needs obvious things cloths, food, housing, transportation etc but that isn't where the money is. The people cooking the books have the money and they are looking for something like a book cooking book. The market for openAI will be in lying convincingly for the benefit of the investor. Reality must be auctioned off like domain names or search engine placements. Altman is really the perfect guy for the job no one wants. ha-ha

Alternatively we could humble ourselves, ask the Chinese how reality works and attempt to steal their fu. It's just a thought.

Re: The OpenAI graveyard: All the deals and products that haven't happened

#67
post #21
post #2

This is important context in the wake of yesterday’s “raise” announcement. A lot of this stuff seems to just quietly never happen once the ink on the PR puff dries. The AI industry increasingly looks in scramble mode to keep the hype going as those storm clouds of financial and business reality get darker and darker on the horizon.

For a company bringing a new technology from zero to mainstream, I think it's pretty normal that there will be a lot of failed attempts at productization. The thing that isn't normal is the degree of experimentation relative to company valuation. Normally once a company reaches $700 B+ valuation, they've figured out their product and monetization strategy. ChatGPT is clearly still iterating heavily on that - not norm…

And not normal for a company that has been at it this long.

The Apple II went on sale on June 10th, 1977. Visicalc went on sale October 17th, 1979- 860 days separate the two. ChatGPT was opened to the public on November 30th, 2022, which was 1219 days ago- almost 50% more time has elapsed than between the Apple II and Visicalc.

Re: The OpenAI graveyard: All the deals and products that haven't happened

#68
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In large part because most companies have a set budget for IT spend. Thats how “normal” profitable companies operate outside this cash burning bonanza that’s going on. And in that reality one can’t just magically spend a bunch more on some fancy new thing, especially when said fancy new thing isn’t retuning value. So “token limits” and cost controls on B2B is entirely expected here.

> especially when said fancy new thing isn’t retuning value I think this is the key element. Either they can't measure the value, or it's far far lower than anyone wants to believe, or both. I think the problem is less that it makes some coding tasks XX% faster, but that the end to end of a SWEs roles tasks is only improved by some much smaller Y%. If a CTO sets $10k/year spend limits on $500k SWEs.. they must not be…

The problem is that AGI fantasy aside, CTOs at companies are expected to deliver results today and tomorrow. Better to let somebody else hold the bag and train models, then once it finally works as advertised you can ease on the brakes.

Re: The OpenAI graveyard: All the deals and products that haven't happened

#70
post #2

This is important context in the wake of yesterday’s “raise” announcement. A lot of this stuff seems to just quietly never happen once the ink on the PR puff dries. The AI industry increasingly looks in scramble mode to keep the hype going as those storm clouds of financial and business reality get darker and darker on the horizon.

The circular deals are getting old - it's like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic's deck.
Post reply on HN