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Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

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Re: Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

#601

Post by leobg »

refurb wrote: post #533
concurrentsquar wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More new information from Swisher: > "More scoopage: sources tell me chief scientist Ilya Sutskever was at the center of this. Increasing tensions with Sam Altman and Greg Brockman over role and influence and he got the board on his side." > "The developer day and how the store was introduced was in inflection moment of Altman pushing too far, too fast. My bet: He’ll have a new company up by Monday." [source: https:/…

No doubt Sam will have another AI company up in no time. Which is good!

Well, he tweeted that once he “goes off” the board won’t be able to do anything about it, because he never owned any equity. That’s how I read it.

Re: Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

#602

Post by sunshinerag »

siva7 wrote: post #501
johnwheeler wrote: post #84

Edit: I called it https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725682088639119857 nothing to do with dishonesty. That’s just the official reason. ———- I haven’t heard anyone commenting about this, but the two main figures here-consider: This MUST come down to a disagreement between Altman and Sutskever. Also interesting that Sutskever tweeted a month and a half ago https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1707752576077176907 Th…

Ah, the old myth about the irreplaceable engineer and the dumb suit. Ask Wozniak about that. I don't think he believes Apple would be without Steve Jobs.

Apple without Woz did fine. Apple without Jobs not so much.

Re: Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

#603

Post by smoldesu »

siva7 wrote: post #544
leptons wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs would be nothing without Wozniak to design something people wanted.

vice versa ;)

If Steve Jobs couldn't claim Wozniak's work as his own, he wouldn't have landed "his" Atari contract. Who knows where things would have gone after that, but I have a hard time tracing Apple's history of success without, say, the Apple II.

Re: Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

#604

Post by jrockway »

Filligree wrote: post #588
jrockway wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a joke. I would find it patronizing unless I'm already on a first name basis with the commenter through some prior relationship.

Really? Referring to someone by first name is perfectly ordinary where I’m from, regardless of relationship. If someone doesn’t want me to do that, I’d expect them to introduce themselves as “Mr. so-and-so”, instead.

In person, sure, that's totally normal. It's unusual on a forum for a few reasons:

1) The comments are meant to be read by all, not just the author. If you want to email the author directly and start the message with a greeting containing their name ("hi jrockway!"), or even just their name, that's pretty normal.

2) You don't actually know the person's first name. In this case, it's pretty obvious, since the user in question goes by what looks like . But who knows if that's actually their name. Plenty of people name their accounts after fictional people. It would be weird to everyone if your HN comment to darthvader was "Darth, I don't think you understand how corporate law departments work." Darth is not reading the comment. (OK, actually I would find that hilarious to read.)

3) Starting a sentence with someone's name and a long pause (which the written comma heavily implies) sounds like a parent scolding a child. You rarely see this form outside of a lecture, and the original comment in question is a lecture. You add the person's name to the beginning of the comment to be extra patronizing. I know that's what was going on and the person who was being replied to knows that's what was going on. The person who used that language denies that they were trying to be patronizing, but frankly, I don't believe it. Maybe they didn't mean to consciously do it, but they typed the extra word at the beginning of the sentence for some reason. What was that reason? If to soften the lecture, why not soften it even more by simply not clicking reply? It just doesn't add up.

4) It's Simply Not Done. Open any random HN discussion, and 99.99% of the time, nobody is starting replies with someone's name and a comma. It's not just HN; the same convention applies on Reddit. When you use style that deviates from the norm, you're sending a message, and it's going to have a jarring effect on the reader. Doubly jarring if you're the person they're naming.

TL;DR: Don't start your replies with the name of the person you're replying to. If you're talking with someone in person, sure, throw their name in there. That's totally normal. In writing? Less normal.

Re: Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

#605

Post by jrockway »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #599
Filligree wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Referring to someone by first name is perfectly ordinary where I’m from, regardless of relationship. If someone doesn’t want me to do that, I’d expect them to introduce themselves as “Mr. so-and-so”, instead.

It's not the first name alone, it's also the sentence structure. "Hey John, did you hear about..." sounds perfectly normal even when talking on-line to strangers. "John, you misunderstand..." is appropriate if you're their parent or spouse or otherwise in some kind of close relationship.

You have explained this much more concisely than me.

Re: Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

#606

Post by YetAnotherNick »

eslaught wrote: post #372
johnwheeler wrote: post #84

Edit: I called it https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725682088639119857 nothing to do with dishonesty. That’s just the official reason. ———- I haven’t heard anyone commenting about this, but the two main figures here-consider: This MUST come down to a disagreement between Altman and Sutskever. Also interesting that Sutskever tweeted a month and a half ago https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1707752576077176907 Th…

This doesn't make any sense. If it was a disagreement, they could have gone the "quiet" route and just made no substantive comment in the press release. But they made accusations that are specific enough to be legally enforceable if they're wrong, and in an official statement no less. If their case isn't 100% rock solid, they just handed Sam a lawsuit that he's virtually guaranteed to win.

Even if their case is 100% solid, they wouldn't have said it publically. Unless they hated Sam for doing something, so it's not just direction of the company or something like that. It's something bigger.

Re: Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

#607

Post by baq »

concurrentsquar wrote: post #408
johnwheeler wrote: post #84

Edit: I called it https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1725682088639119857 nothing to do with dishonesty. That’s just the official reason. ———- I haven’t heard anyone commenting about this, but the two main figures here-consider: This MUST come down to a disagreement between Altman and Sutskever. Also interesting that Sutskever tweeted a month and a half ago https://twitter.com/ilyasut/status/1707752576077176907 Th…

More new information from Swisher: > "More scoopage: sources tell me chief scientist Ilya Sutskever was at the center of this. Increasing tensions with Sam Altman and Greg Brockman over role and influence and he got the board on his side." > "The developer day and how the store was introduced was in inflection moment of Altman pushing too far, too fast. My bet: He’ll have a new company up by Monday." [source: https:/…

With VCs cat fighting in the queue and sama just sticking it to them with bootstrapping independently.

I don’t like this whole development one bit, actually. He lost his brakes and I’m sure he doesn’t see it this way at all.

Re: Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

#608

Post by manojlds »

Paul-Craft wrote: post #585
vikramkr wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Announcing something huge like this before market close is not something that can be interpreted as anything other than either a huge timing mistake or a massive feeling of urgency

I find it hard to believe that the board of OpenAI isn't smart, savvy and self-interested enough to know that not delaying the announcement by an hour or so is the wrong move. That leads me to believe that yes, this was something big and worthy enough of being announced with that timing, and that it was probably not a mistake.

Takeaway Sam, Greg and Ilya and who are the others even in the board. Doesn't inspire any confidence.

Re: Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

#609

Post by karmasimida »

HlessClaudesman wrote: post #578
siva7 wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the old myth about the irreplaceable engineer and the dumb suit. Ask Wozniak about that. I don't think he believes Apple would be without Steve Jobs.

Sam Altman is no Steve Jobs.

OpenAI is no Apple.

Re: Greg Brockman quits OpenAI

#610

Post by username332211 »

nostrademons wrote: post #389
cowl wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't justify the hostile language and the urgent last minute timing. (partners were notified just minutes before press release). They didn't wait even 30 min for the market to close causing MSFT to drop billions in that time. A mere direction disagrement would have been handled with "Sam is retiring after 3 months to spend more time with his Family, We thank him for all his work". And surely would be taken months…

Yeah, this is more abrupt and more direct than any CEO firing I've ever seen. For comparison, when Travis Kalanick was ousted from Uber in 2017, he "resigned" and then was able to stay on the board until 2019. When Equifax had their data breach, it took 4 days for the CEO to resign and then the board retroactively changed it to "fired for cause". With the Volkswagon emissions scandal, it took 20 days for the CEO to r…

You are comparing a corporate scandals, but the alternative theory in this forum seems to be a power struggle and power struggles have completely different mechanics.

Think of it as the difference between a vote of no confidence and a coup. In the first case you let things simmer for a bit to allow you to wheel and deal and to arrange for the future. In the second case, even in the case of a parliamentary coup like the 9th of Thermidor, the most important thing is to act fast.

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