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OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

reuters.com

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Re: OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

#71

Post by csunbird »

natdempk wrote: post #14
csunbird wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they had a shortlist, but no one stepped up to take the job.

Even then, that “shortlist” was clearly built in a total scramble after their first interim CEO sided with Sam.

There has to be a good reason on why this was rushed, it has to be a "now or never" kind of situation for this outcome. I presume the candidates on the shortlist were skeptical to accept the job until the smoke clears on the situation, they do not want to be on the bad side of this affair until it is known that accepting the job is not a career and network suicide.

Re: OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

#73

Post by DebtDeflation »

drexlspivey wrote: post #34
robg wrote: post #13

Looking more and more like the dev day nuking of D’Angelo’s Poe led to this outcome. I’m surprised that connection has escaped close scrutiny - it was a conflict of interest AND now Poe is viable again as intended. For a minor player in AI he’s managed to maximize his interests and while serving on a non-profit board.

I see stuff like this spreading in social media and it’s always people speculating without any evidence. On Saturday it was a coup by Ilya, on Sunday it was a coup by effective altruists/decelerationists on the board, today is D’Angelo’s Poe getting eaten up tomorrow it will be something else. Your theory collapses in the slightest amount of scrutiny, if D’Angelo tries to destroy the company due to his own company lo…

>On Saturday it was a coup by Ilya, on Sunday it was a coup by effective altruists/decelerationists on the board, today is D’Angelo’s Poe getting eaten up tomorrow it will be something else.

It's already moved on to Helen Toner.

https://twitter.com/karaswisher/status/1726755613667934217?s...

Re: OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

#74

Post by siva7 »

olalonde wrote: post #63
siva7 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure this question can be answered better by the employees themselves and they voted very clearly that they don't want a leadership unter the current board that ousted Sam and Greg. As for why customers care about who the CEO is, i'm not even sure if you're seriously asking these questions.

I see your point, but I am somewhat skeptical about leaks. I'm open to being convinced about how Sam's leadership played a pivotal role in OpenAI's success, or why finding a suitable replacement might be difficult. Are there specific instances where his decisions clearly influenced the course of events? Observing from the outside, it feels like the bulk of the credit goes to their AI team and that Sam was just there…

> Sam was just there to make sure the machine was well oiled

That's a big part of the success of any company. Sam and Greg were responsible for recruiting the team that made it possible and removing the many obstacles those people faced over the years, even though their competition had much more money and prestige at the starting point.

Re: OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

#75

Post by robg »

NewEntryHN wrote: post #62
robg wrote: post #13

Looking more and more like the dev day nuking of D’Angelo’s Poe led to this outcome. I’m surprised that connection has escaped close scrutiny - it was a conflict of interest AND now Poe is viable again as intended. For a minor player in AI he’s managed to maximize his interests and while serving on a non-profit board.

It has not escaped close scrutiny. It's just that people don't go around accusing a specific person without evidence.

The timing of Dev Day and its impacts on Poe aren’t suspect to you?

And you don’t think D’Angelo has a conflict of interest that impacts his board role at OpenAI?

Re: OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

#76

Post by kamaal »

drexlspivey wrote: post #34
robg wrote: post #13

Looking more and more like the dev day nuking of D’Angelo’s Poe led to this outcome. I’m surprised that connection has escaped close scrutiny - it was a conflict of interest AND now Poe is viable again as intended. For a minor player in AI he’s managed to maximize his interests and while serving on a non-profit board.

I see stuff like this spreading in social media and it’s always people speculating without any evidence. On Saturday it was a coup by Ilya, on Sunday it was a coup by effective altruists/decelerationists on the board, today is D’Angelo’s Poe getting eaten up tomorrow it will be something else. Your theory collapses in the slightest amount of scrutiny, if D’Angelo tries to destroy the company due to his own company lo…

>>why would the other 3 board members be on board with that?

I guess all had their reasons. This is one big reason why you don't want these non-profit kind of things. No stake, No play. Human beings don't feel about the things they don't own the same way, they feel about things they own.

I think the motivation to make profits, get rewarded is a tremendous driver of things. In situations like these you are always tempted to think that the true end of altruism is nobody(who works on things to make them happen) benefits. Notice how its the same when the set up succeeds, same when it fails.

If D'Angelo acted to protect his company it shouldn't be surprising. The whole point of having people with conflict of interests to not serve on your board is exactly this. They have more reasons to see you fail, than see you win.

Other people likely had their own reasons. Ilya probably was acting too altruistic, and had thoughts about Sama for a long time.

Expecting the whole company to sign up with your moves, especially when their financial interests are the exact opposite, is taking it a little too far. Which again brings us back the same thing. Lots of people seem to be arguing that people working on this at all levels must be doing this for grander reasons, and not making it about just money alone. Which is so unfair and such wrong evaluation of people's motives to work on anything at all, let alone this.

Finally, it feels like nobody wanted to see the company win. And they didn't have incentives to do that either. Every one seems to be happy it ended.

Re: OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

#77

Post by replwoacause »

hyperfuturism wrote: post #44
mihaic wrote: post #37

I tried not to have an opinion until now, but so far Altman seems like a greedy asshole, and D'Angelo seems like a greedier asshole. That clash ended up terribly, since neither of them care about anything else than their best interests.

How is Altman a greedy asshole? He's been at OpenAI since founding date, he's taken zero economic upside in this venture, and he's now being kicked out - what exactly makes him an asshole?

Zero economic upside for being the OpenAI CEO? That is difficult to believe.

Re: OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

#78

Post by mihaic »

hyperfuturism wrote: post #44
mihaic wrote: post #37

I tried not to have an opinion until now, but so far Altman seems like a greedy asshole, and D'Angelo seems like a greedier asshole. That clash ended up terribly, since neither of them care about anything else than their best interests.

How is Altman a greedy asshole? He's been at OpenAI since founding date, he's taken zero economic upside in this venture, and he's now being kicked out - what exactly makes him an asshole?

I got this picture from other dirt revealed during this whole debacle: the fact that he wanted to raise billions to run a chip company for AI (obvious conflict of interests), how he lies and manipulates people, even sexual abuse allegations by his sister.

Brockman sounds great, but not sure why the tech world wants to praise someone like Altman. Maybe more people that I would expect what to be like him, even if it means doing some lying and manipulation from time to time.

Re: OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

#79

Post by dnissley »

siva7 wrote: post #64
dnissley wrote: post #42

A writer for wired says they have reason to believe this story is a fabrication (although doesn't explain why): https://twitter.com/willknight/status/1726793735143621058

The only difference: the informer is a respected publication while wired is wired and you're not gonna make it better with a claim and then not follow-up with any kind of evidence. But at this point it could be all fabrication. Journalism is mostly a joke at this point.

Is The Information actually a higher quality source? I can't say I know much about them. Why do you think that?

Re: OpenAI's board approached Anthropic CEO about top job and merger

#80

Post by bigbillheck »

tucnak wrote: post #61
bigbillheck wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting abused will mess you up in all sorts of ways. And in any case, someone as rich as Sam Altman letting a close relative live in poverty like that is by itself a pretty damning inditement of his character.

Would you feel better had he locked her up in premier upclass mental institution?

Google says the guy's worth $500M. A mere 1% of that in a trust could ensure that none of his siblings would have to live in poverty ever again. In absolute numbers that's a lot, but in relative terms I've given away much larger percentages of my net worth to relatives, including ones more distant than siblings, I'd do it again, and I'd think less of anybody who wouldn't do the same.
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