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Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

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Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#671

Post by not2b »

throwaway31131 wrote: post #585

What goes around comes around... From March of this year, "As we know, big tech companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon have been engaged in a fierce battle for the best tech talent, but OpenAI is now the one to watch. They have been on a poaching spree, attracting top talent from Google and other industry leaders to build their incredible team of employees and leaders." https://www.leadgenius.com/resources/how-open…

We shouldn't use the word "poaching" in this way. Poaching is the illegal hunting of protected wildlife. Employees are not the property of their employers, and they are free to accept a better offer. And perhaps companies need to revisit their compensation practices, which often mean that the only way for an employee to get a significant raise is to change companies.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#673

Post by roguecoder »

not2b wrote: post #671
throwaway31131 wrote: post #585

What goes around comes around... From March of this year, "As we know, big tech companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon have been engaged in a fierce battle for the best tech talent, but OpenAI is now the one to watch. They have been on a poaching spree, attracting top talent from Google and other industry leaders to build their incredible team of employees and leaders." https://www.leadgenius.com/resources/how-open…

We shouldn't use the word "poaching" in this way. Poaching is the illegal hunting of protected wildlife. Employees are not the property of their employers, and they are free to accept a better offer. And perhaps companies need to revisit their compensation practices, which often mean that the only way for an employee to get a significant raise is to change companies.

Indeed! It would be illegal _not_ to poach employees: https://www.goodspeedmerrill.com/blog/2023/12/what-is-a-no-p...

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#674

Post by roguecoder »

elif wrote: post #517

I've seen paying people too much completely erode the core of teams. It's really hard to convince yourself to work 60 hour weeks when you have generational FU$ and a family you love.

Working more than 50 hours a week is counter-productive, and even working 50 hours a week isn't consistently more productive than working 40 hours a week.

It is very easy to mistake _feeling_ productive and close with your coworkers for _being_ productive. That's why we can't rely on our feelings to judge productivity.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#675

Post by roguecoder »

sorcerer-mar wrote: post #532
nilkn wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's limited or no evidence of this in other domains where astonishing pay packages are used to assemble the best teams in the world (e.g., sports).

Sports have a much, much tighter feedback loop on performance than anything in software, and certainly tighter than R&D. Same with a lot of the financial roles with comp distributions like this.

I disagree. If you want similarly-tight feedback loops on performance, pair programming/TDD provides it. And even if you hate real-time collaboration or are working in different time zones, delightful code reviews on small slices get pretty close.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#676

Post by roguecoder »

ndgold wrote: post #625

Actually, I think that people who do it for the love of the game are the true winners here, whether they work for a company or not. You can't beat intrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation + a seven figure paycheck seems strictly better than intrinsic motivation alone

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#677

Post by roguecoder »

toofy wrote: post #69

hilarious seeing that he views it this way when his company is so very well known for taking (strong arguments say stealing) everything from everyone. i’m noticing more and more lately that our new monarchs really do have broken thought patterns. they see their own abuse towards others as perfectly ok but hilariously demand people treat them fairly. small children learn things that these guys struggle to understand.

SBF demonstrated how utilitarian thought + massive money can easily spiral into self-centered anti-social behavior.

Being a billionaire seems to be inherently bad for human brains.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#678

Post by roguecoder »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #406
hliyan wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absoluely ridiculous that investors are driven (and are expected to be driven) by maximisation of return of investment, and that alone, but when labour/employees exhibit that same behaviour, they are labeld "mercenaries" or "transacitonal".

These examples of double standards for labor vs capital are literally everywhere. Capital is supposed to be mobile. Economic theory is based on the idea that capital should flow to its best use (e.g., investors should withdraw it from companies that aren't generating sufficient returns and provide it to those who are) including being able to flow across international borders. Labor is restricted from flowing across i…

Those lower rates of taxation on capital don't even incentivize investment, because investment is inelastic. What else are you going to do with the money, swim in it?

It's just about rich people wanting a bigger share of the pie and having enough money to buy the policies they prefer.

Similarly, we have laws that guarantee our right to talk with our coworkers about our income, but the penalties have been completely gutted. And the penalty for companies illegally colluding on salary by all telling a third party what they are paying people and then using that data to decide how much to pay is ... nada.

We need to figure out how to have people who work for a living fund political campaigns (either directly with money or by donating our time), because this alternative of a badly-compressed jpeg of an economy sucks.

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#679

Post by dmoy »

Koffiepoeder wrote: post #661
azan_ wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people that are capable of working 60+/week long term without burnout, they are very rare but do exist (I know like two or three).

I know many, though most of them are either founders, business owners or farmers. FWIW, only one person in that list is an employee.

I guess there's a subset that sustains for a known set of years - surgical residents. 60-80+ hours

Re: Sam Altman Slams Meta’s AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat Mercenaries'

#680

Post by Hoasi »

rchaud wrote: post #172
Yeul wrote: post #20

AI as a religion should scare any investor. Where are the products that you can sell for moolah?

Religion delivers a recurring revenue model that isn't taxed and where criminal confessions can't be used in court if made to a high-ranking company officer. It's the perfect business.

Also, some religions have the best branding ever. Studying religions will teach you marketing and virality.
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