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OpenAI to become for-profit company

reuters.com

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Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#771

Post by pj_mukh »

exceptione wrote: post #764
pj_mukh wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"An uptick in construction work will not be an inflation balloon. " There's a massive shortage in construction workers [1], so yes there will be? The few construction workers we do have can demand higher wages (yay!) but then will they be outbidding other mid-income folks for housing with those increased wages? Sounds like an inflation spiral to me. My statement wasn't against social housing, I love social housing. W…

On a macro scale, that has hardly any impact, and I think it would be even immeasurable. It is rather the other way around. Higher rents / house prices will make sure only people with higher wages can afford to live there. That means your bagel or coffee will be more expensive there too.

I didn’t say macro scale, I said Los Angeles that’s the problem.

Pretty much everything required to build housing, wood, labor, pre-approved land is in a massive shortage that we can’t spend money to fix.

So more money to simple pump demand for all those things will have a massive inflationary impact.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#772

Post by wheels »

apwell23 wrote: post #769
wheels wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really just making shit up here. He didn't get $50 million for his startup within 15 minutes of meeting Paul Graham. YC's deal back then was for about $15k per startup for 7%. Loopt didn't even over its several years raise $50 million -- it was around $30 million, and that happened over a space of several rounds over several years. I was in YC a few batches later and met Paul Graham and Sam in that era. I reme…

> It really seems like you have an axe to grind here, and I'm not completely sure why. Yea because ppl getting unfair leg up because they were chosen as the "next bill gates" by a SV white male because they look like them is merely an "axe to grind". You still haven't answered why you think he is like an olympian when he met PG other than "He is impressive because he is impressive". I feel like i am in some kind of w…

I wasn't comparing Sam to an Olympian; I was comparing you to one. Just because you were working in a donut shop at that age doesn't mean that that's the benchmark for achievement. Some people go to the Olympics. I honestly don't know enough about Sam's achievements before then to know if he'd done impressive things.

The whole "white man" thing is also a complete straw man. The other two YC-founders-turned YC CEOs of that era were Michael Seibel and Garry Tan, neither of whom are white.

It sounds like what you're offended by is the whole YC process -- that there are quick interviews that (back then) translated to small amounts of funding -- that literally the decision was made in a single interview. But that wasn't anything specific to Sam; that's how it worked for everyone. You can find that stupid if you want to, but then might I suggest this is an odd forum to hang out on if you find that to be offensive?

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#773

Post by sotix »

matwood wrote: post #260
sotix wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A non-profit is a company that for accounting purposes does not have shareholders and therefore keeps nothing in retained earnings at the end of the period. The leftover money must be distributed (e.g. as salaries, towards the stated mission, etc.). Their financial statements list net profit for the period and nothing is retained.

The money doesn't have to be used. Many non-profits have very large balance sheets of cash and cash equivalent assets. The money just won't be paid out as dividends to shareholders.

Correct. They carry a net assets balance at the end of the period. But they do not retain earnings because there are no shareholders to pay out.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#774

Post by latexr »

pj_mukh wrote: post #751
latexr wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you do with a a lot of money past a point? Feed the hungry. House the homeless. Give away money unconditionally to those in need. Build hospitals in poor countries. Fight disinformation on crucial topics (such as climate change). Provide disaster relief. Not build more power hungry technology that exacerbates our current problems. Do literally anything positive for another person, that does not harm others.…

"Feed the hungry. House the homeless" Funnel $10B in housing to Los Angeles and you'll build less than 100 units of housing, because the inflationary push of that money would balloon the cost of per unit housing. I don't want to imagine the effect of that on middle class housing. Funnel $10B of food to xyz famine region and you've undercut local farmers for generations. Happens all the time [1]. And that's assuming y…

I didn’t say “do these things inefficiently”. If we know better, we can do better. It’s like if I said “use the money to fix the potholes in this road” and you replied “but if you shove all that asphalt in the same hole, it will create a mound that stops cars from going through”. Yeah, don’t dump everything in the same place without thinking.

Start by collaborating with organisations which are entrenched in studying these issues and the impact of the solutions. If you have the money you can pay them to help and guide the effort, don’t act like if you know everything.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#775

Post by ckcheng »

ttul wrote: post #420
xxpor wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If most of your expenses are software devs, that's not true any more.

This is one reason why some companies have located engineers in Canada under subsidiaries. Canada not only allows you to deduct R&D costs as an expense, but there is an extremely generous R&D tax credit that yields a negative tax rate on engineers. For Canadian controlled private companies, this represents as much as a 60% refundable tax credit on R&D salaries. For foreign-owned companies, the benefit is smaller but…

Wait, you saying in Canada a R&D software company can essentially sell a dollar (of SDE produced goods) for a dollar and get a tax refund from the government?

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#776

Post by pj_mukh »

latexr wrote: post #774
pj_mukh wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Feed the hungry. House the homeless" Funnel $10B in housing to Los Angeles and you'll build less than 100 units of housing, because the inflationary push of that money would balloon the cost of per unit housing. I don't want to imagine the effect of that on middle class housing. Funnel $10B of food to xyz famine region and you've undercut local farmers for generations. Happens all the time [1]. And that's assuming y…

I didn’t say “do these things inefficiently”. If we know better, we can do better. It’s like if I said “use the money to fix the potholes in this road” and you replied “but if you shove all that asphalt in the same hole, it will create a mound that stops cars from going through”. Yeah, don’t dump everything in the same place without thinking. Start by collaborating with organisations which are entrenched in studying…

Yes this has basically been the modus operandi of the gates foundation and it took them 10 years to make a dent on Malaria. They still have no clue how to “efficiently” reduce famines.

They won’t touch American housing problems with a 10ft pole. That should tell you something.

Go to Berkeley, tell them a Billionaire wants to build housing for the homeless in their neighborhood. See what happens.

It’s a hard pill to swallow but the best thing billionaires can do is let us tax them and then butt out go fly rockets. The political problems is upto the rest of us.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#777

Post by permo-w »

pj_mukh wrote: post #755
BrianHenryIE wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me recommend my favourite TikTok/YouTube channel of late, The Forest Jar what annoys you?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Le1ibX2zY > if you went to a group of investors and pitched a board game where the winners get space ships and the losers die, they'd call you crazy. But if you suggested to those same investors that perhaps we shouldn't organize our entire society that way, they'd call you crazy.

"where the winners get space ships and the losers die," The Social Security budget is $1.4 Trillion, just the federal welfare budget is >$1Trillion (not including state budgets), and then there's medicare. Meanwhile, the NASA budget is I wish we lived in that simple of a world. But we don't.

this is a complete non-sequitur. the US social security budget does not go to one person or a small group of oligarchs

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#778

Post by exceptione »

pj_mukh wrote: post #771
exceptione wrote: post #764

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a macro scale, that has hardly any impact, and I think it would be even immeasurable. It is rather the other way around. Higher rents / house prices will make sure only people with higher wages can afford to live there. That means your bagel or coffee will be more expensive there too.

I didn’t say macro scale, I said Los Angeles that’s the problem. Pretty much everything required to build housing, wood, labor, pre-approved land is in a massive shortage that we can’t spend money to fix. So more money to simple pump demand for all those things will have a massive inflationary impact.

Nope, LA is too much part of the macro economy to make such an impact. Wood and labor doesn't have to come from LA and even if that would double (it won't) there would be a round zero impact on inflation in LA. The land to be build was going to be sold anyways, you just get one bidder more, or several bidders less if the council makes requirements like x% social housing.

Please, forget anything you are worrying about here, it does not apply.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#779

Post by exceptione »

pj_mukh wrote: post #776
latexr wrote: post #774

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t say “do these things inefficiently”. If we know better, we can do better. It’s like if I said “use the money to fix the potholes in this road” and you replied “but if you shove all that asphalt in the same hole, it will create a mound that stops cars from going through”. Yeah, don’t dump everything in the same place without thinking. Start by collaborating with organisations which are entrenched in studying…

Yes this has basically been the modus operandi of the gates foundation and it took them 10 years to make a dent on Malaria. They still have no clue how to “efficiently” reduce famines. They won’t touch American housing problems with a 10ft pole. That should tell you something. Go to Berkeley, tell them a Billionaire wants to build housing for the homeless in their neighborhood. See what happens. It’s a hard pill to s…

The housing problem in the USA is mostly a NIMBY. It is difficult to get projects from the ground.

Re: OpenAI to become for-profit company

#780

Post by joe_the_user »

zingerlio wrote: post #700

We are booing Altman because his bait and switch feels unethical, but many of us saw it coming from a mile away, how does he make this transition to take advantage of the financial system so smoothly? Is there no legal guard for such maneuver, or is he just an insanely good player to circumvent all of them in plain view?

Just cobbling together articles I've read... Once the board failed to fire Altman, this transition was a done-deal, it was just a matter of when. Before the board fired Altman, he had been engaging in a more covert effort to take control - putting together personal attacks on various board members intended to drive them out and hiring people with a similar attitude to and loyalty to himself. When the board fired him, they didn't give any clear reasons and that's most mysterious part of the situation. Apparently they were all concerned about his campaign to take control of the board but they each had slightly different reasons for agreeing. I'd further speculate that the board thought in lawyer-advice terms - say as little as possible to avoid a retaliatory lawsuit.

But the board's lack of communication apparently allowed Altman to demonstrate he was more important to the organization than the formal/legal structure, 90% signed intents to quit and the board backed down. It seemed that Altman simply represented the attitude of the many Silicon Valley tech-people - once you have a chance of money, don't hold back, do everything you can to make it.

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