"ChatGPT can you give me a catchy phrase I can use to sway the public discourse against Meta that puts OpenAI in the most favorable light? Also sprinkle in some alliteration if you could"
Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
641–650 of 734 posts
Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
#642Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, they're actually the bad guys, just folks haven't thought far enough ahead to realise it yet.
> bad guys You imply there are some good guys. What company?
There are some less bad.
But, can't think of one off hand. Maybe Toys-R-Us? Ooops gone. Radio Shack? Ooops, also gone.
On the scale of Bad/Profit, Nice dies out.
Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
#643I'm pretty sure Sam Altman's only mission in life is to be as personally wealthy as Mark Zuckerberg. Is that mission really supposed to inspire undying loyalty and insane workloads from OpenAI staffers?
Yes, if wealth is also what they want, and they believe the crumbs trickling down will be big enough.
Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
#644Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Dont make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Mark Zuckerberg Considering the rest of your comment it's not clear to me if "anthropomorphizing" really captures the meaning you intended, but regardless, I love this
I think it’s a play on “don’t anthropomorphize the lawn mower”, referring to Larry Ellison.
Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
#645Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Capitalists don't like markets, or at least not the markets that we're told capitalism will bring about. The "markets" most people learn about are artificial Econ 101 constructions. They're pedagogical tools for explaining elasticity and competition under the assumption that all widgets are equally and infinitely fungible. An assumption which ignores marginal value, individual preferences, innovation and other thin…
> An assumption which ignores marginal value, individual preferences, innovation and other things that make real markets. If those things mattered we'd have a lot fewer people mad about the state of things. > The capitalist wants to be left to trade as he sees fit without state intervention. If that were true you'd see a lot fewer lobbyists in DC and state capitols. Non-compete and non-disparagement clauses wouldn't…
> If those things mattered we'd have a lot fewer people mad about the state of things
They're mad precisely because they have differing expectations and interpretations of these things. If even they did agree, consensus shouldn't be confused with reality.
> If that were true you'd see a lot fewer lobbyists in DC and state capitols.
Lobbying is the exercise of an individual's right to petition government for redress of grievances. So long as there are complaints there will always be lobbyists.
> Non-compete and non-disparagement clauses wouldn't exist. Patents and copyright wouldn't either.
Non-compete and non-disparagement clauses are no restraint on freedoms if they were agreed upon to by way of voluntary contract. Rather, like other transactions, they are explicit trades of certain opportunities for certain benefits.
> Patents and copyright wouldn't either.
I'll give you that.
Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
#646I don't think I've ever seen someone use two semicolons in one sentence.
Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
#647Mercenaries over missionaries. Many employers want employees to act like cult members. But then when going gets tough, those are often the first laid off, and the least prepared for it. Employers, you can't have it both ways. As an employee don't get fooled.
That’s because you don’t believe/realize in the mission of the product and its impact to society. When if work at Microsoft, you are just working to make MS money as they are like a giant machine.
That said it seems like every worker can be replaced. Lost stars replaced by new stars
Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
#648Mercenaries over missionaries. Many employers want employees to act like cult members. But then when going gets tough, those are often the first laid off, and the least prepared for it. Employers, you can't have it both ways. As an employee don't get fooled.
During the first ever layoff at $company in 2001, part of the dotcom implosion, one of my coworkers who got whacked complained that it didn’t make sense as he was one of the companies biggest boosters and believers. It was supremely interesting to me that he thought the company cared about that at all. I couldn’t get my head around it. He was completely serious, he kept arguing that his loyalty was an asset. He was m…
The one and ONLY way I've ever seen "company" loyalty rewarded in any way is if you have a DIRECT relationship with a top level senior manager (C-suite). They will specifically protect you if they truly believe you are on "their side" and you are at their beck and call.
Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
#649Earlier quoted context omitted.
Either Meta makes rapid progress on frontier-level AI in the next year or it doesn't -- there's definitely a feedback loop that's measured in tangible units of time. I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that when Zuck personally hires you at this level of compensation, there will be performance expectations and you won't stick around for long if you don't deliver. Even in top-tier sports, many underperformers ma…
In reality all frontier models will likely progress at nearly the same pace making it difficult to disaggregate this team's performance compared to others. More importantly, it'll be nearly impossible to disaggregate any one contributor's performance from the others, making it basically impossible to enforce accountability without many many repetitions to eliminate noise. > Even in top-tier sports, many underperforme…
There are plenty of established performance management mechanisms to determine individual contributions, so while I wouldn't say that's a complete nonissue, it's not a major problem. The output of the team is more important to the business anyway (as is the case in sports, too).
And if the team produces results on par with the best results being attained anywhere else on the planet, Zuck would likely consider that a success, not a failure. After all, what's motivating him here is that his current team is not producing that level of results. And if he has a small but nonzero chance of pushing ahead of anyone else in the world, that's not an unreasonable thing to make a bet on.
I'd also point out that this sort of situation is common in the executive world, just not in the engineering world. Pretty much every top-tier executive at top-tier companies is making seven or eight figures as table stakes. There's no evidence I'm aware of that this reduces executive or executive team performance. Really, the evidence is the opposite -- companies continue paying more and more to assemble the best executive teams because they find it's actually worth it.
Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'
#650Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s how they talk about it publicly. Internally I can attest that the companies for two of the three you list are not like that internally at all. It’s all marketing, outwardly focused.
I believe it's the opposite. They don't dare say their ridiculous tech cult stuff to their employees, but it's what they truly believe. AGI is their capitalist savior, here to redeem a failing system from having to pay pesky workers.
"Tech founders" for whom the "technology" part is the thing always getting in the way of the "just the money and buzzwords" part.
Now they think they can automate it away.
25+ years in this industry and I still find it striking how different the perspective between the "money" side and the "engineering" side is... on the same products/companies/ideas.