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OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

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Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#921
post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't really understanding why the workforce is swinging unambiguously behind Altman. Maybe it has to do with them wanting to get rich by selling their shares - my understanding is there was an ongoing process to get that happening [1]. If Altman is out of the picture, it looks like Microsoft will assimilate a lot of OpenAI into a separate organisation and OpenAI's shares might become worthless. [1] https://www.f…

My estimate is that a typical staff engineer who'd been at OpenAI for 2+ years could have sold $8 million of stock next month. I'd be pissed too.

No way it is this much.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#922
post #913

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is MSFT we're talking about. Aggressive legal maneuvers are right in their wheelhouse!

Yes, this is the exact thing they did to Stacker years ago. License the tech, get the source, create a new product, destroy Stacker, pay out a pittance and then buy the corpse. I was always amazed they couldn't pull that off with Citrix.

Given the sensitivity of data handled over Citrix connections (pretty much all hospitals), I'm fairly sure Microsoft just doesn't want the headaches. My general experience is that service providers would rather be seen handling nuclear weapons data than healthcare data.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#924

If they join Sam Altman and Greg Brockman at Microsoft they will not need to start from scratch because Microsoft has full rights [1] to ChatGPT IP. They can just fork ChatGPT. Also keep in mind that Microsoft hasn't actually given OpenAI $13 Billion because much of that is in the form of Azure credits. So this could end up being the cheapest acquisition for Microsoft: They get a $90 Billion company for peanuts. [1]…

I also wonder how much is research staff vs. ops personnel. For AI research, I can't imagine they would need 20, maybe 40 ppl. For ops to keep up ChatGPT as a service, that would be 700.

If they want to go full bell labs/deep mind style, they might not need the majority of those 700.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#925

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is wrong. Microsoft has no such rights and its license comes with restrictions, per the cited primary source, meaning a fork would require a very careful approach. https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-and-openai-forge-awkw...

I think without looking at the contracts, we don't really know. Given this is all based on transformers from Google though, I am pretty sure MSFT with the right team could build a better LLM. The key ingredient appears to be mass GPU and infra, tbh, with a collection of engineers who know how to work at scale.

but why didn't they? Google and Meta both had competing language models spun up right away. Why was microsoft so far behind? Something cultural most likely.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#926
Did Mira Murat have say in whether she wanted to become CEO?

Why is she siding with SamA and GregB even though she was on the meeting when he was fired?

Also Ilya what the flying fuck? Wasn’t he the one who fired them?

Either you say SamA was against safe AGI and you hold that stick or you say I wasn’t part of it.

So much stupidity. When an AGI arrives, it will surely shake its head at the level of incompetence here.

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#928
I feel pity for these 70 people out of 700 who haven't signed the letter asking the board to step down. Imagine working peacefully to find yourself in the middle of a power struggle without even understanding what the real reason was but realizing most people already made their choice so...

Re: OpenAI staff threaten to quit unless board resigns

#930

Silicon Valley outsider here. Am I being harsh here? I just bothered to look at the full OpenAI board composition. Besides Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman, why are these people eligible to be on the OpenAI board? Such young people, calling themselves "President of this", "Director of that". - Adam D'Angelo — Quora CEO (no clue what he's doing on OpenAI board) - Tasha McCauley — a "management scientist" (this is a ne…

This is the Silicon Valley's boy's club, itself an extension of the Stanford U. boys club.

"Meritocracy" is very impolite word in these circles.

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