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We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

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Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#641

Post by NicoJuicy »

Satam wrote: post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

> that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft

No it's not. Microsoft didn't knew about this till minutes before the press release.

Investors are free to protest decisions against their principles and people are free to move away from their current company.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#642

Post by busyant »

eclectic29 wrote: post #196

The media and the VCs are treating Sam like some hero and savior of AI. I’m not getting it. What has he done in life and/or AI to deserve so much respect and admiration? Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? It looks like one should strive to become product manager, not an engineer or a scientist.

> Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support?

I can't believe I'm about to defend VCs and "senior management" but here goes.

I've worked for two start-ups in my life.

The first start-up had dog-shit technology (initially) and top-notch management. CEO told me early on that VCs invest on the quality of management because they trust good senior executives to hire good researchers and let them pivot into profitable areas (and pivoting is almost always needed).

I thought the CEO was full of shit and simply patting himself on the back. Company pivoted HARD and IPOed around 2006 and now has a MC of ~ $10 billion.

The second start-up I worked with was founded by a Nobel laureate and the tech was based on his research. This time management was dog-shit. Management fumbled the tech and went out of business.

===

Not saying Altman deserves uncritical praise. All I'm saying is that I used to diminish the importance of quality senior leadership.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#643

Post by giamma »

gabrielgio wrote: post #618
eclectic29 wrote: post #196

The media and the VCs are treating Sam like some hero and savior of AI. I’m not getting it. What has he done in life and/or AI to deserve so much respect and admiration? Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? It looks like one should strive to become product manager, not an engineer or a scientist.

> What has he done in life and/or AI to deserve so much respect and admiration? Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? This has been the case for all achievement of all major companies, the CEO or whoever is on top gets the credit for all their employee's work. Why would be different for OpenAI?

Well there are notable cases in which the CEO had a critical role in the product development. Larry Ellison coded himself the first versions of Oracle database and was then CEO up to 2014. Shay Banon wrote Elasticsearch and was Elastic CEO for some time.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#645

Post by robertlagrant »

lordnacho wrote: post #497
Satam wrote: post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

Is it really a failure of critical thinking? The employees know what position is popular, so even people who are mostly against the go-fast strategy can see that they get to work on this groundbreaking thing only if they toe the line. It's also not surprising that people who are near the SV culture will think that AGI needs money to get developed, and that money in general is useful for the kind of business they are…

> I mean if OpenAI had been born in the Soviet Union or Scandinavia, maybe people would have somewhat different values, it's hard to know.

Or in Arthurian times. Very different values.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#646

Post by torginus »

sensanaty wrote: post #620
eclectic29 wrote: post #196

The media and the VCs are treating Sam like some hero and savior of AI. I’m not getting it. What has he done in life and/or AI to deserve so much respect and admiration? Why don’t top researchers and scientists get equivalent (if not more) respect, admiration and support? It looks like one should strive to become product manager, not an engineer or a scientist.

I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if Sam and his other ultra-rich buddies like Satya had their fingers deep in the pockets of all the tech journalists that immediately ran to his defense and sensationalized everything. Every single news source posted on HN read like pure shilling for the Ponzi sch- uh, I mean Worldcoin guy and hailing him as some sort of AI savant.

My more plausible version is that CEOs of journalistic publications are in cahoots with the rich/powerful/govt people, who get to dictate the tone of said publications by hiring the right journalists/editors and giving them the right incentives.

So as a journalist you might have freedom to write your articles, but your editor (as instructed by his/her senior editor) might try to steer you about writing in the correct tone.

This is how 'Starship test flight makes history as it clears multiple milestones' becomes 'Musk rocket explodes during test'

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#647

Post by nmfisher »

nickysielicki wrote: post #571

Satya and Sam committed securities fraud with their late Sunday “funding secured” ploy to protect the MSFT stock price. This was the obvious outcome. Sam had no intentions of actually going through with that and Satya was in no position to unilaterally commit to the type of funding that he was implying. They lied to protect the stock. That should be illegal. In fact, it is illegal.

Yeah, I think there may well be an investigation into that. At best, he said something that was unequivocally untrue, and at worst it was an outright lie. That's blatant market manipulation.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#648

Post by nashashmi »

kmlevitt wrote: post #389
Satam wrote: post #215

Disappointing outcome. The process has conclusively confirmed that OpenAI is in fact not open and that it is effectively controlled by Microsoft. Furthermore, the overwhelming groupthink shows there's clearly little critical thinking amongst OpenAI's employees either. It might not seem like the case right now, but I think the real disruption is just about to begin. OpenAI does not have in its DNA to win, they're too…

I think this outcome was actually much more favorable to D'Angelo's faction than people realize. The truth is before this Sam was basically running circles around the board and doing whatever he wanted on the profit side- that's what was pissing them off so much in the first place. He was even trying to depose board members who were openly critical of open AI's practices. From here on out there is going to be far mor…

Media >= employees? Media >= Sam? I don't think media has any role on oversight or governance.

I think Sam came out the winner. He gets to pick his board. He gets to narrow his employees. If anything, this sets him up for dictatorship. The only other overseers are the investors. In that case, Microsoft came out holding a leash. No MS, means no Sam, which also means employees have no say.

So it is more like MS > Sam > employees. MS+Sam > rest of investors.

Re: We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam to return to OpenAI as CEO

#649

Post by maxdoop »

yosame wrote: post #257
turndown wrote: post #7

From the outside none of this makes much sense. So the old board just disliked him enough to oust him but apparently didn’t have a good pulse on the company and overplayed their hand?

As far as I can tell, Sam did something? to get fired by the board, who are meant to be driven by non-profit ideals instead of corporate profits (probably from Sam pushing profit over safety, but there's no real way to know). From that, basically the whole company threatened to quit and move to Microsoft, showing the board that their power is purely ornamental. To retain any sort of power or say over decision making…

Where is this blind trust for the board coming from? The board provided zero rationale for firing Sam.
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