Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft • Hacker News Board

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#891

Post by bart_spoon » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 1:02 PM UTC

konschubert wrote: post #678

Arainach wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Sam's history is full of the worst parts of venture capital and startup mindset. He's only an idealist so far as he's good at selling the ideal outcome and drowning out any criticism.

You can bring abundance to the world as a for profit entity. The exchange of services and goods in a market is positive-sum.

> The exchange of services and goods in a market is positive-sum.

As long as you ignore externalities, yes.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#892

Post by ctvo » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 1:03 PM UTC

itg wrote: post #874

ctvo wrote: post #821

The only shocking thing about this whole episode was how many people in the media failed to understand just how much power this board had. They were, at no time, under any obligation to do anything except what they wanted and no one could force them otherwise. They held all the cards. The tech media instead ran with gossip supplied by VCs and printed that as news. They were all going to resign 8 hours after their dec…

If talent starts leaving OpenAI and join Sam at Microsoft, what does OpenAI have left? If investors decide not to give money to OpenAI because their leadership comes across as over their heads, how will they continue running? That may have been the leverage Microsoft and other investors tried to use, but OpenAI leadership thinks won't happen. We'll see what unfolds.

> If talent starts leaving OpenAI and join Sam at Microsoft, what does OpenAI have left?

This is a real possibility and something I'm sure Ilya and the board thought through. Here's my guess:

- There's been a culture rift within OpenAI as it scaled up its hiring. The people who have joined may not have all been mission driven and shared the same values. They may have been there because of the valuation and attention the company was receiving. These people will leave and join Altman or another company. This is seen as a net good by the board.

- There's always been a sect of researchers who were suspicious of OpenAI because of its odd governance structure and commercialization. These people now have clear evidence that the company stands for what it states and are MORE likely to join. This is what the board wants.

> If investors decide not to give money to OpenAI because their leadership comes across as over their heads, how will they continue running?

I don't think this is an actual problem. Anthropic can secure funding just fine. Emmet is an ex-Amazon / AWS executive. There's possibility that AWS will be the partner providing computing in exchange for OpenAI's models being exclusively offered as part of Amazon Bedrock, for example, if this issue with Microsoft festers. I know Microsoft sees this as a clear warning: We can go to AWS if you push us too hard here.

I don't see how the partnership with MSFT isn't dissolved in some way in the coming week as Altman and co. openly try to poach OpenAI talent. And again, maybe dissolving the MSFT ties was something the board wanted. It's hard to imagine they didn't think it was a possibility given the way they handled announcing this on Friday, and it's hard to imagine it wasn't intentional.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#893

Post by htrp » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 1:03 PM UTC

suslik wrote: post #819

shubhamjain wrote: post #99

Have to give it to Satya. There's a thin possibility that Microsoft would have to write-off its whole $10B (or more?) investment in OpenAI, but that isn't Satya's focus. The focus is on what he can do next. Maybe, recruit the most formidable AI team in the world, removed from the shackles of an awkward non-profit owning a for-profit company? Give enough (cash) incentives and most of OpenAI employees would have no qua…

Was GPT4 a success due to the brilliance of OpenAI's tech team vs first movers advantage and good GPU deals with MS? I might be missing something here, but to me nothing about this technology feels like rocket science (obviously, there is a lot of nuance, yada yada, but nothing that seems intractable). I have a strong suspicion that the reason Amazon, Google and so on are not particularly interested in building GPT-s…

>I have a strong suspicion that the reason Amazon, Google and so on are not particularly interested in building GPT-scale transformers is that they know they can do it anytime - they are just waiting for others to pave the path to actually good stuff.

Google has been hyping gemini since the spring (and not delivering it)

Amazon's Titan Model is not quite there yet.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#894

Post by sanderjd » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 1:03 PM UTC

esoterica wrote: post #663

zoogeny wrote: post #190

All of the naysayers here seem convinced this is Altman and Microsoft looking to destroy OpenAI. Normally I am the cynic but this time I’m seeing a potential win-win here. Altman uses his talent to recruit and drive forward a brilliant product focused AI. OpenAI gets to refocus on deep research and safety. Put aside cynicism and consider Nadella is looking to create the best of all worlds for all parties. This might…

What about the people who got paid equity for the past few years of work and now might see all of their equity intentionally vaporized? They essentially got cheated into working for a much lower compensation than they were promised. I get that funny money startup equity evaporates all the time, but usually the board doesn’t deliberately send the equity to zero. Paying someone in an asset you’re intentionally going to…

There is probably a lawsuit here, I would not disagree, but I don't think the board will have too much trouble arguing that they didn't intentionally send the equity to zero. I certainly haven't seen any of them state that that was their intention here. But the counter argument that theyshould have known that their actions would result in that outcome may be a strong one.

But I think it is probably sufficient to point to the language in the contracts granting illiquid equity instruments that explicitly say that the grantee should not have any expectation of a return.

But I think this is an actual problem with the legal structure of how our industry is financed! But it's not clear to me what a good solution would even be. Without the ability to compensate people with lottery tickets, it would just be even more irrational for anyone to work anywhere besides the big public companies with liquid stock. And that would be a real shame.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#895

Post by criley2 » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 1:04 PM UTC

9dev wrote: post #288

I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms (or ”shackles“, as you phrased it.) Microsoft can now proceed without the guidance of a council that actually has humanities interests in mind, not only those of Microsoft shareholders. I don’t know whether all that caution will turn out to have been necessary, but I guess we’re just gleefully heading into whatever…

>I don’t quite buy your Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms

It's ironic because the only AI that doesn't have "pesky ethics qualms" are... literally the entire open source scene, all of the models on hugging face, etc...

All of the megacorps are the only safety and security happening in AI. I can easily run open source models locally and create all manner of political propaganda, I could create p^rnography of celebrities and politicians, or deeply racist or bigoted materials. The open source scene makes this trivial these days.

So to describe it as "Cyberpunk utopia where the Megacorp finally rids us of those pesky ethics qualms" when the open source scene has already done that today is just wild to me.

We have AI without ethics today, and every not-for-profit researcher, open source model and hacker with a cool script are behind it. If OpenAI goes back to being Open, they'll help supercharge the no-ethics AI reality of running models without corporate safety and ethics.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#896

Post by sigmoid10 » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 1:04 PM UTC

anonyfox wrote: post #868

Seems like in the minority here, but for me this is looking like a win-win-win situation for now. 1. OpenAI just got bumped up to my top address to apply to (if I would have the skills of a scientist, I am only an engineer level), I want AGI to happen and can totally understand that the actual scientists don't really care for money or becoming a big company at all , this is more a burden than anything else for resear…

That is just a matter of perspective. It's clearly a win-win if you're on team Sam. But if you're on team Ilya, this is the doomsday scenario: With commercialisation and capital gains for a stock traded company being the main driving force behind the latest state of the art in AI, this is exactly what OpenAI was founded to prevent in the first place. Yes, we may see newer better things faster and with better support if the core team moves to Microsoft. But it will not benefit humanity as a whole. Even with their large investment, Microsoft's contract with OpenAI specifically excluded anything resembling true AGI, with OpenAI determining when this point is reached. Now, whatever breakthrough in the last weeks Sam was referring to, I doubt it's going to move us to AGI immediately. But whenever it happens, Microsoft now has a real chance to sack it for themselves and noone else.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#897

Post by sharas- » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 1:05 PM UTC

Turns out not everybody was sold-out at OpenAI. Good riddance, that Altman weasel was just that, a sellout.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#898

Post by polygamous_bat » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 1:06 PM UTC

dartos wrote: post #890

anonyfox wrote: post #868

Seems like in the minority here, but for me this is looking like a win-win-win situation for now. 1. OpenAI just got bumped up to my top address to apply to (if I would have the skills of a scientist, I am only an engineer level), I want AGI to happen and can totally understand that the actual scientists don't really care for money or becoming a big company at all , this is more a burden than anything else for resear…

Little pet peeve of mine. Engineers aren’t a lower level than scientists, it’s just a different career path. Scientists generate lots of ideas in controlled environments and engineers work to make those ideas work in the wild real world. Both are difficult and important in their own right.

> Engineers aren’t a lower level than scientists, it’s just a different career path.

I assume GP is talking in context of OpenAI/general AI research, where you need a PhD to apply for the research scientist positions and MS/Bachelors to apply for research engineer positions afaik.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#899

Post by camillomiller » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 1:06 PM UTC

UrineSqueegee wrote: post #473

camillomiller wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, I wish some of that caution could have been there when Facebook was in its OpenAI stage 15 years ago. A lot of people don't seem to realize that this mess is exactly what it looks like to slow down something now that could become something else we will all regret in 10 years.

> I wish some of that caution could have been there when Facebook was in its OpenAI stage 15 years ago. I think I'm missing a slice of history here, what did Facebook do that could have been slowed down and it's a disaster now?

Facilitating genocide in Myanmar, for one. Poisoning the wells of the Web with the worst kind of profiled advertisement the world has ever seen. Perfecting and optimizing the addiction mechanism of smartphones. Creating a mental health epidemic in younger women. I mean, the body of studies and malfeasances is out there, we just keep ignoring it.

Re: Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and others to join Microsoft

#900

Post by sanderjd » Mon, Nov 20, 2023, 1:06 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #82

This is sorta brilliant. Microsoft has access to almost everything OpenAI does. And now Altman and Brockman will have that access too. Meanwhile, I imagine their tenure at MSFT will be short-lived, because hot-shot startup folks don’t really want to work there. They can stabilize, use OpenAI’s data and models for free, use Microsoft’s GPUs at cost, and start a new company shortly, of which Microsoft will own some lar…

That was my first thought too: Didn't occur to me as a solution, and it seems to square the circle brilliantly. It struck me that this is why people who are CEOs of mammoth companies have the jobs they have, and not me :)