[HN Gopher] OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman's return
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OpenAI investors keep pushing for Sam Altman's return
Author : jobsub
Score : 120 points
Date : 2023-11-21 20:15 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| jobsub wrote:
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/openai-investors-k...
| foobarian wrote:
| Assuming Altman has already signed paper with MSFT, how would
| this work exactly? Break whatever contract clause there was
| involved? Maybe it's customary to have an easy backout period in
| situations like this.
| tmostak wrote:
| I assume if MSFT/Satya are supportive it won't be an issue.
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| I wonder if Microsoft owning 49% of OpenAI vastly simplifies
| such a situation. Or maybe further complexifies it. It's
| fascinating to watch, anyway.
| jacquesm wrote:
| All they need is another 2% and at a measly two billion that
| would be an easy settlement. The board members get to save
| face and Satya is off to the races, employees happy,
| investors happy.
|
| It could easily happen.
| croes wrote:
| They can't simply by additional 2%
| jacquesm wrote:
| Why not? An emission could be done and whoever has the
| right to buy could pick it up. End of story.
| papercrane wrote:
| My understanding is the OpenAI holding company, which is
| controlled by the board of directors, owns 51% of the
| capped-profit company, with Microsoft owning the other
| 49%. There doesn't seem to be a scenario where Microsoft
| can buy a controlling interest without the boards
| approval.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, hence the word 'settlement' in my original comment.
| As in: you ensure we get a controlling interest and we'll
| let you go quietly.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| What is interesting is that Sam noted that OpenAI board
| should go after his shares if he were to go off on the
| company...which implies some sort of ownership that others
| had no prior knowledge of.
|
| What's the over-under of his shares being more than 2%?
| papercrane wrote:
| Based on OpenAI's structure, I would expect his equity
| would be in the OpenAI holding company, and not OpenAI
| Global, LLC which Microsoft is a minority owner of and
| the holding company is a majority holder. The holding
| company is what employees and investors have equity in.
|
| If Altman had equity directly in OpenAI Global that would
| be really odd and go against OpenAIs previous
| disclosures.
|
| https://openai.com/our-structure
| ladon86 wrote:
| That was a joke, the fact that he has no shares is the
| punchline.
|
| He is basically saying they have no leverage to stop him
| speaking out once he's been fired (which they might if he
| remained an equity holder).
| zepton wrote:
| Microsoft couldn't control the OpenAI business even if it
| owned every unit of every LLC associated with OpenAI
| (except for the special units owned by OpenAI GP LLC, which
| is wholly owned+controlled by the non-profit). The
| operating agreement of OpenAI LLC (which actually operates
| the OpenAI business) specifies that OpenAI GP LLC (which is
| wholly owned and controlled by the non-profit) controls it
| regardless of how many units it owns. See
| https://openai.com/our-structure
| empath-nirvana wrote:
| MSFT, presumably, is one of the investors that want him to stay
| at openai.
| dymk wrote:
| They offered him a job leading his own unit within MSFT, so
| that doesn't make sense
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I am not sure the enforceability of non-competes in California.
| They're certainly not for ordinary workers but I know that it
| is often enforceable in other places for executives even when
| deemed not for workers.
| croes wrote:
| I think parent means breaking the contract with MS if he
| returns to OpenAI.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Right - which would be a non-compete.
| ekosz wrote:
| I think that's a large thing to assume. That announcement could
| also have been easily just damage control before the markets
| opened on Monday and nothing has yet to be truly hashed out and
| agreed on.
| layer8 wrote:
| He hasn't. Why would he prematurely?
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/20/23970100/sam-altman-micr...
| ilaksh wrote:
| The last time I checked they still hadn't given me access to
| OpenAI on Azure. Do they still have a form you have to apply on?
| ge96 wrote:
| Did you use a business email?
| ilaksh wrote:
| No. Do I have to set that up in order to get access?
| ge96 wrote:
| The form says "Your company email address"
| gmail/hotmail/outlook will be denied ha
|
| edit: it is curious about this... you could get past that
| with mailgun but then they ask for company address, company
| phone number, etc... vs. OpenAI where you can sign up with
| a gmail account. Anti abuse?
| stillbourne wrote:
| Seems like the prettiest girl at the dance.
| pyb wrote:
| "This also isn't the first time Altman has been asked to depart a
| company...."
| GreedClarifies wrote:
| No kidding, their investment will go to zero as soon as he
| officially joins Microsoft or starts his own firm.
|
| All they will have left is lawsuits.
| jacquesm wrote:
| And difficult ones at that, but they have plenty of money so
| I'm sure they'll be able to set a couple of lawyers up for
| life.
| mrits wrote:
| I'd buy it
| jacquesm wrote:
| Does anybody know who is currently CEO of OpenAI? Friday, Sam.
| Saturday, Mira. Sunday was a day off, Monday it was Emmet so who
| is it for today?
|
| Kidding aside, the board is under more and more pressure but -
| surprisingly - they haven't folded yet. I am interpreting that as
| that they are trying to get something out of it that nobody is
| willing to give them. The new CEO is also surprisingly not to be
| found at all, no public statements, nothing to reassure employees
| that the ship is in good hands. Not the best showing for a
| captain of a ship in crisis.
| moontear wrote:
| Satoshi Nakamoto probably
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > Does anybody know who is currently CEO of OpenAI?
|
| Emmett Shear.
|
| Altman won't be back.
|
| Investors like success and returns but they don't like
| companies where all the employees have basically sworn out an
| oath of fealty to the CEO, as it means they (the investors)
| have basically no control over anything.
| voisin wrote:
| > where all the employees have basically sworn out an oath of
| fealty to the CEO, as it means they (the investors) have
| basically no control over anything.
|
| Another interpretation: those closest to the internal
| workings of the business believe that a certain person is
| best capable of managing the business. Turns out that person
| is also who the investors believe in. So rather than fealty
| to a person, they are simply voting (with their feet
| apparently) against the board.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > So rather than fealty to a person
|
| Have you _seen_ the bizarre behaviour that's occurring on
| twitter? Retweeing heart emojis, making weird declarations
| of faith, acting in lockstep? They're 100% swearing fealty
| and it's incredibly weird.
| maxdoop wrote:
| I think it's wierd the dismissive way many folks in this
| thread speak about it all.
|
| "Sam isn't important. Employees are weirdos. The board is
| just fine. Everyone calm down."
|
| That's more wierd than anything happening on Twitter.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| It's objectively weird to see staff - almost all of them
| researchers and head-down types - unite so firmly behind
| a non-technical CEO.
|
| Those staff usually have their private champions within
| the company - usually technically focussed project
| managers who can run interference against the commercial
| side - but nod along with the CEO who they view as the
| ugly necessity of having to have a 'business guy.'
| ebalit wrote:
| This is not how I interpret the messages from the OpenAI
| team members.
|
| They are sending messages of unity, not fealty to Sam
| Altman.
|
| Working together brought them to the top of the world
| both in term of research and product. This is a dream
| come true.
|
| What would surprise me is that they wouldn't do
| everything they can to avoid breaking their team.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Shear won't last.
|
| > Investors like success and returns but they don't like
| companies where all the employees have basically sworn out an
| oath of fealty to the CEO, as it means they (the investors)
| have basically no control over anything.
|
| Investors _love_ such companies. I, as an investor would love
| such a company, as long as I was sure that the CEO would
| stay. Investors tend to not have control over much of
| anything anyway unless they have a board seat. Other than
| that it 's a shareholder meeting once per year where you get
| to sign off on the actions of the execs for the preceding
| year. But the better interpretation is that the people there
| have said "we are not loyal to the board" rather than that
| they are more loyal to Altman, that only goes for those that
| will follow him wherever he goes.
|
| The best time for an investor to influence things is when you
| come on board. The best way for an investor to continue to be
| able to influence things is to have a controlling interest or
| very good relations with enough of the stockholders to
| effectively have a controlling interest.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > I, as an investor would love such a company, as long as I
| was sure that the CEO would stay.
|
| As an investor you have no way of obtaining that surety.
| So, you would not love this company.
|
| > But the better interpretation is that the people there
| have said "we are not loyal to the board" rather than that
| they are more loyal to Altman
|
| Dude they're retweeting heart emojis and carrying water in
| _the most disturbing_ fashion on twitter. They're 100%
| declaring that they're his personal army, ride or die. I
| don't know how you aren't seeing this. It's completely
| abnormal behaviour for adults.
| righthand wrote:
| That will last until Sam gives up and drops them all when
| he moves on to whatever he's doing next. They may be
| dogmatic about it but it's only because they think they
| have cards to play.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| It's giving me real Jim Jones vibes, to be honest. It's
| incredibly weird behaviour.
| maxdoop wrote:
| Dude, you're all over this thread and have such a strange
| bias against Sam and the current employees. Can I ask,
| out of genuine curiosity, why you find the board to be OK
| in this situation and why you find Sam / the employees
| behind him so off-putting?
| righthand wrote:
| Dude I'm all over this thread because people are
| responding to me. It's called conversation. You want me
| to run and hide because 20 people jumped on me with
| opposing thoughts?
|
| Oh yeah I think Sam is sleazier than most people seem to
| think. I also don't think he's in the right because the
| board has been quiet. The whole thing is insular and one
| sided. Everything they're doing/saying is to try and
| control the board. That is off-putting because it's
| detrimental to the board's intent. I'm sure they're all
| very nice people and hard workers.
| maxdoop wrote:
| No, I think you're mistaking my tone. I was genuinely
| curious, because it's rare to see someone with a sure
| view on this mad saga! And I wanted to learn a bit more
| from the somewhat-less-popular side (I do think there is
| an odd cultish energy around Sam at the moment from some
| folks).
|
| I don't know enough about Sam or the board at all, so
| curious as to reasons why he might be sleazy/sneaky.
|
| The board being quiet, in my opinion, is not doing them
| any favors!
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > why you find Sam / the employees behind him so off-
| putting?
|
| To me it's the 100% committed 'vibe' they're giving off.
| It's weird. It's not how staff, especially
| technical/researchers (who usually bicker like anything
| over the most trivial of differences) behave.
|
| Anyone who's managed a big research team knows that
| competing rivalries and internecine warfare is the order
| of the day. Literal slapfights have broken out over
| whether big or little endian encoding will be more
| efficient for any given scenario, for example.
| foota wrote:
| The investors already have no control!
| abi wrote:
| What are you talking about? The OpenAI board isn't made up of
| investors.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Employees hate working for companies where they have no voice
| too. Morale will drop and attrition will skyrocket. New
| talent won't consider OpenAI, existing talent will leave.
|
| The investment goes to zero anyway without talent.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > New talent won't consider OpenAI
|
| I think you can assume that there's a large pool of talent
| that would love to work at OpenAI, they were just turned
| off by the ... vibes ... coming from the e/acc locksteppy
| types.
|
| It may be very easy to re-hire talent that's actually a lot
| smarter, if a bit less 'mission focussed.'
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >>they were just turned off by the ... vibes ...
|
| So they just need to hire some Gen Z [1], not to actually
| make AI technology but to make "good vibes"
|
| [1] https://nypost.com/2023/11/18/lifestyle/gen-z-
| workers-say-th...
|
| >>I think you can assume that there's a large pool of
| talent
|
| Why would we assume that? Every company in the US
| currently is complaining endlessly about the lack of
| talent, in IT especially I see posts from hiring managers
| being unable to find tech talent, and the fact that
| several companies are making very aggressive plays at
| getting OpenAI worker right now tells me there is not
| infact a "large pool of talent" that will just back fill
| all of these roles.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > in IT especially I see posts from hiring managers being
| unable to find tech talent
|
| Hasn't the sector been aggressively laying off for the
| past 6 months? I mean, there have been many many many
| posts about it here.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| you have confused "tech company layoffs" with "tech
| worker layoffs"
|
| Alot of Tech companies have been laying off alot of
| support staff in HR, Recruitment, Sales, and other
| business functions
|
| and yes some Technical roles as well, but dont think
| because you see "Google Lays of X,000 employees" means
| they just laid off that many AI Researchers, programmers,
| etc...
| otteromkram wrote:
| Plenty of talent flooding the market right now.
|
| Say, what agenda are you trying to push, spaceman? This is
| the second comment of yours in this thread trying to make
| it seem like everyone at OpenAI is irreplaceable, so maybe
| you missed the hundreds of thousands of tech layoffs this
| year in the US.
| omeze wrote:
| New talent will consider any place that pays 300k base :)
| sigmar wrote:
| > all the employees have basically sworn out an oath of
| fealty to the CEO
|
| Objectively not true. Employees were quiet on Friday. It was
| after Ilya told employees that Altman was fired partly
| because he tasked two people with the same job, that they
| then organized.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| Wow, they were played like a fiddle. How old do you have to
| be to believe that story, 9?
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| Emmett is already threatening to resign.
|
| https://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/1033862/op.
| ..
| 15457345234 wrote:
| This entire thread is full of reddit-tier 'sources'
| righthand wrote:
| I don't think the board is under any pressure. If they don't do
| anything else they just need the employees to fold on their
| threat to resign. Even if the employees resign, ChatGPT is
| still running and there are lots of people willing to take the
| defecting employees spots.
|
| The only thing they are pressured on is to fill in the story
| for the media point of view which is irrelevant to the actual
| functioning of OpenAI.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I don't think the board is under any pressure.
|
| Ok, you have a higher threshold for the use of the word
| pressure than I do.
|
| > If they don't do anything else they just need the employees
| to fold on their threat to resign. Even if the employees
| resign, ChatGPT is still running and there are lots of people
| willing to take the defecting employees spots.
|
| I wouldn't be so sure of that.
|
| > The only thing they are pressured on is to fill in the
| story for the media point of view which is irrelevant to the
| actual functioning of OpenAI.
|
| Their investors, employees and donors might disagree with
| that.
|
| Want to bet that Emmet Shear won't last the week?
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > I wouldn't be so sure of that.
|
| Given that a bunch of the staff are acting like they're
| Heavens Gate members you also expect them to sabotage it?
| Or literally have a flavor-aid session in the office?
|
| > Their investors, employees and donors might disagree with
| that.
|
| Nobody wants to invest in a personality cult that's sworn
| an oath of fealty to one guy, dude. That's basically
| flushing money down the toilet, as this fiasco
| demonstrates. These lunatics are ready to sacrifice their
| children on twitter. You cannot work with people like that!
| ben_w wrote:
| > Nobody wants to invest in a personality cult that's
| sworn an oath of fealty to one guy, dude. That's
| basically flushing money down the toilet, as this fiasco
| demonstrates.
|
| Are you aware that Microsoft and Salesforce CEOs have
| both offered to hire any OpenAI employees who want to
| switch boat, while Nvidia CEO and Meta's FAIR team have
| both made similar but slightly lesser "call me" offers to
| all of them?
|
| https://cointelegraph.com/news/microsoft-salesforce-
| nvidia-a...
|
| > These lunatics are ready to sacrifice their children on
| twitter. You cannot work with people like that!
|
| ???
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > made similar but slightly lesser "call me" offers to
| all of them
|
| Sure, it's in their interest to break up a unified bloc
| of talent. Doesn't mean they genuinely want them.
|
| > ???
|
| The behaviour demonstrated by many of the staff on
| twitter is, for want of a better word, unhinged. Odd
| declarations of loyalty. 4am posts. Retweeting hearts.
| Acting very 'ride or die.' It's weird.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Sure, it's in their interest to break up a unified bloc
| of talent. Doesn't mean they genuinely want them.
|
| Doesn't fit. In the scenario where they're all thinking
| that, nobody has to follow up with the same offer after
| the first person says it.
|
| > The behaviour demonstrated by many of the staff on
| twitter is, for want of a better word, unhinged. Odd
| declarations of loyalty. 4am posts. Retweeting hearts.
| Acting very 'ride or die.' It's weird.
|
| How is _any_ of that "sacrifice their children on
| twitter"?
|
| I mean, jeez, this is major drama even for the rest of
| the tech community -- this whole thing is even front-page
| on the BBC news site as I write -- _of course_ the people
| who work there are going to say things on Twitter.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > nobody has to follow up with the same offer
|
| Yes, different companies have to follow up with the same
| offer in order to break up the talent bloc. Otherwise the
| bloc will move en-masse to one firm.
|
| > How is any of that "sacrifice their children on
| twitter"?
|
| It's called hyperbole
| ben_w wrote:
| > Yes, different companies have to follow up with the
| same offer in order to break up the talent bloc.
| Otherwise the bloc will move en-masse to one firm.
|
| Or just... not hire all of them. Much easier.
|
| And in the scenario where Microsoft, Salesforce, NVIDIA,
| and Meta actually think the OpenAI staff are mad (rather
| than the more plausible scenario where they think the
| OpenAI board is mad and are looking for a big pile of
| skilled proven talent that already know each other and
| can work well together on big projects), the only sane
| response would have been "not only don't hire them, don't
| offer them jobs, what are you even thinking this is the
| real world we don't do things like the script of a Marvel
| film".
|
| > It's called hyperbole
|
| It makes you look like the mad one.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > Or just... not hire all of them. Much easier.
|
| Then a competitor might hire all of them. If you're in
| the AI business you don't want that. You want to grab
| either all of them or balkanize them. Come on, this isn't
| a hard concept to grasp.
|
| > And in the scenario where they actually think they're
| mad ... the script of a Marvel film
|
| Then you hire them on a 5 year exclusive contract so they
| can't rejoin Hydra.
|
| > It makes you look like the mad one
|
| It's normal human writing style, hyperbole, sarcasm,
| exaggeration, wit, irony, you know. Adult writing, for
| adults to consume.
| ben_w wrote:
| You're saying
|
| > Sure, it's in their interest to break up a unified bloc
| of talent
|
| And
|
| > If you're in the AI business you don't want that. You
| want to grab either all of them or balkanize them.
|
| And
|
| > Nobody wants to invest in a personality cult that's
| sworn an oath of fealty to one guy, dude. That's
| basically flushing money down the toilet, as this fiasco
| demonstrates. These lunatics are ready to sacrifice their
| children on twitter. You cannot work with people like
| that!
|
| These are mutually incompatible positions.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| Oh, I see what you mean. When I said 'grab all of them' I
| meant the researchers. On the assumption that you can
| deprogram them, lol.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Your position is not internally consistent, you should
| really think over what each of those implies and then
| drop or adjust one or more of these.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| > Your position is not internally consistent
|
| I'm throwing out suggestions as to why various differing
| parties here may be doing what they're doing. There's no
| need for internal consistency because it's not a unified
| top-down scenario, it's multipolar game theorizing.
|
| 'If A does B, then why would C do D, that isn't
| consistent' well the answer is that A and C are
| competing, not cooperating.
| 15457345234 wrote:
| Also cointelegraph (lol) is not a reliable source of ...
| anything. Apart from hype, maybe.
| ben_w wrote:
| I might agree except they cited their sources and I
| checked them. I may be wrong, but those look like legit X
| accounts to me.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| >> If they don't do anything else they just need the
| employees to fold on their threat to resign. Even if the
| employees resign, ChatGPT is still running and there are
| lots of people willing to take the defecting employees
| spots.
|
| >I wouldn't be so sure of that.
|
| What about all those people who just pivoted from web3 to
| ai?
| babberman wrote:
| I am not going to bet against that. There are only two
| possible outcomes and neither has Emmet as a CEO.
|
| 1, Sam comes back and thus obviously Emmet leaves.
|
| 2, Sam does not come back and OAI just dissolves into being
| a series of drawn out investor lawsuits, something Emmet
| probably don't want to get involved in.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| These words are gonna get ate one way or another. There is no
| outcome where the current board wins.
|
| Emmet is already threatening the board with resignation
| unless they provide evidence of wrongdoing [1]. Which they
| don't have, because they would have revealed it already.
|
| They are empty shirts.
|
| [1]
| https://x.com/emilychangtv/status/1727020834005700914?s=20
| righthand wrote:
| Why? The board announced the removal of a CEO which they
| have the power to do. It upset a bunch of employees who
| liked the CEO. The board is in search of a new CEO.
|
| OpenAI's valuation isn't because Sam Altman is worth $90B
| it's the tech. The tech is fine. Investors have no reason
| to worry about their investment in the tech.
|
| The people under pressure are Sam Altman trying to reclaim
| his job he was fired from and Satya Nadella who is running
| a campaign to eat OpenAI. None of that is related to the
| functioning tech of OpenAI, all of it is related to the
| drama of what happened. Drama is not equal to money.
|
| I was sad when my favorite pet died too, but then
| eventually you get a new pet that's just as good as a
| Worldcoin guy, maybe better.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| According to Stratechery, Microsoft does not just have
| the rights to use the source code and model weights for
| GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, but a clause saying that Microsoft
| could not use the models as foundations for their own
| projects was recently removed.
|
| > Investors have no reason to worry about their
| investment in the tech.
|
| If Stratechery is correct, this means that if Microsoft
| successfully poaches Sam Altman and friends, and vacuums
| OpenAI clean of talent, they will even be able to use the
| actual GPT-4 to build a Microsoft GPT-5. That should make
| investors sweat. If you lose the people _and_ (possibly)
| the technology, what 's left?
| himaraya wrote:
| Source? Ben didn't read his cited source in his article
| yesterday.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Currently, the claim is unproven. However, if I were an
| investor, I'd be pounding on the doors demanding for
| clarification.
| himaraya wrote:
| I meant, can you link the claim that the clause in
| question got removed?
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| https://stratechery.com/2023/openais-misalignment-and-
| micros...
|
| "Microsoft's original agreement with OpenAI also barred
| Microsoft from pursuing AGI based on OpenAI tech on its
| own; my understanding is that this clause was removed in
| the most recent agreement."
|
| (It's hidden under a citation bubble you need to click
| after the third paragraph.)
| himaraya wrote:
| I see. Pursuing AGI sounds distinct from commercializing
| future versions of ChatGPT based on OpenAI IP. I imagine
| the exact legal wording in the contract makes all the
| difference.
|
| The WSJ article from June he cited indicates the license
| still comes with restrictions.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-and-openai-forge-
| awkw...
| jacquesm wrote:
| I'd have my lawyers do the pounding.
| righthand wrote:
| Yeah okay Microsoft poaches them but they still have to
| restart building everything from scratch which wouldn't
| benefit Microsoft. Microsoft doesn't want to poach
| talent, they can always do that with or without this
| incident. Microsoft wants the whole bundle. Hence the
| media campaign Satya is doing.
| jacquesm wrote:
| No, the point is they would _not_ have to start building
| everything from scratch.
| righthand wrote:
| That only happens if Microsoft acquires all of OpenAI,
| not if they just poach the employees. Poaching means
| starting again even if they have the road map in their
| head.
| ebalit wrote:
| They already have access to GPT4 per their agreement with
| OpenAI.
| exitb wrote:
| Companies aren't valued for their current state, but
| future prospects.
| righthand wrote:
| Is Sam Altman a future prospect of LLMs? It's not like he
| holds the secret to GPT v5 or anything.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'd be surprised if Sam was by himself, but I wouldn't be
| at all surprised if some of the people who signed that
| letter do hold the secret to the next big thing (GPT-5
| probably isn't the next big thing; if it exists already
| it's likely just a nice iterative improvement and not a
| fundamental change).
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Seeing the amount of employees that are willing to follow
| him, yes I'd say he is.
|
| If you have a mass exodus of employees, sure you can hire
| people to maintain ChatGPT 4, but they won't complete a
| GPT 5 or 6. That valuation is definitely based on the
| assumption that they will continue advancing AI and that
| they will consistently stay ahead of competitors for some
| time. They just axed both of those assumptions.
|
| ChatGPT 4 as the endgame is not worth 90 billion dollars.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| "It upset a bunch of employees. The tech is fine". Uhmm,
| it upset 98% (not figuratively, but mathematically) of
| all 700 employees who signed a petition to quit unless
| he's reinstated and for the board to resign. As for the
| tech... who... exactly do you think created, maintains
| and is developing future enhancement for the tech? Is it
| doing it by itself? Sorry, we're not there _yet_.
| righthand wrote:
| > Uhmm, it upset 98% (not figuratively, but
| mathematically) of all 700 employees who signed a
| petition to quit unless he's reinstated and for the board
| to resign.
|
| And they have yet to leave as far as I know. Seems like
| no one is in an actual hurry to quit.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| Sam Altman is currently talking to the board. You want
| them to spin up drama by quitting in the middle of the
| talks? You're trying too hard to copy paste your desired
| narrative on this and it fits so, so, so poorly.
| righthand wrote:
| If Sam comes back it'll be under heavy changes. The board
| isn't going to leave. You don't get ousted and then get
| to call the shots, no matter how many employees you think
| you have on your side. Furthermore the fact that Sam is
| in talks is further proof that he won't be coming back on
| his terms. As the board why would you fold to the
| employees just because they like a guy?
|
| I'm not copy pasting anything, cute diss though.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| Sorry to be blunt, but literally everything you said so
| far was nonsense, so I'll understand your opinion as a
| sign that Sam Altman will come back and the board will
| resign.
| righthand wrote:
| Ah I see more disses, very cute. Get a Team Sam t-shirt
| made for yourself.
| spamizbad wrote:
| I think one lesson we learned from Twitter is that you
| can cull a large amount of a tech workforce and the
| product will keep humming along, albeit at a reduced rate
| of change.
|
| Also, unlike Twitter, OpenAI pays engineers very
| competitive salaries and can aggressively re-hire roles.
| 3cats-in-a-coat wrote:
| You learned the wrong lesson. Twitter is dying and
| operating at a significantly degraded level, including
| moderation, content filtering, ad positioning, which
| caused a third or fourth mass advertiser exodus just few
| days ago.
|
| Also. Leading the world in revolutionary AI is not
| exactly like maintaining a pre-existing message app.
|
| Twitter:
|
| - Had 7500 employees before Musk fired most of them.
|
| - Now 1300, of which 550 are full-time devs.
|
| - That's a company valuated at less than $16 billion
| currently, and losing about $2 billion a year.
|
| OpenAI:
|
| - Has 700 employees, including world-leading scientists
| and researchers that are practically irreplaceable.
|
| - If they resign, it'll have 14 employees.
|
| - For a company that before Sam Altman was fired was
| valuated at $90 billion.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| I dont think there is a large overlap here.
|
| Twitter seemed to be adult daycare with a HUGE amount of
| positions that openly did nothing all day, many many
| positing publicly about how they only actually worked a
| few hours a week. Along with a Huge business support
| staff that seemed to really be pointless
|
| I do not see that analog at OpenAI which has mainly
| engineering positions.
|
| Also the idea that you just just "aggressively re-hire
| role" engineering positions in a emergent field like AI
| seems to be bit naive to me. How many experience people
| outside OpenAI are their int he first place??
|
| It seems to me to be very ironic that in other situations
| is seems to be common for people to hate on corporations
| that treat their employees like interchangeable widgets
| that can just be replaced on a dime with a new human, yet
| here we see people claim that exact thing. Very odd
| jacquesm wrote:
| There is no comparison between the cadre at Twitter and
| and the talent pool at OpenAI, I don't think you can
| replace the bulk of them at all, and nobody worth that
| kind of compensation is going to touch OpenAI with a 100
| foot pole as long as the current board is there.
| zarzavat wrote:
| 98% is meaningless. If Altman _is_ reinstated then he
| will have the power to fire anyone who didn't sign. You'd
| be an idiot not to sign it.
| thinkindie wrote:
| Technology is not made out of thin air but it is made -
| and maintained - by people; and when 500 out of 700
| people threaten to quit on the spot and leave for
| competitors, or for Microsoft, investors might not be
| happy at all.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| It's not 500/700. It's like 728/770 last I checked.
| Almost everyone.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| > The board announced the removal of a CEO which they
| have the power to do.
|
| They have the power to remove him momentarily, do they
| have the power to keep him out? we're still finding out.
|
| > OpenAI's valuation isn't because Sam Altman is worth
| $90B it's the tech.
|
| OpenAI's valuation is nominally because of the tech. It's
| fundamentally because of the people. 90% of the staff is
| threatening to follow Sam to $MS so that's the whole ball
| game. They went to OpenAI to make themselves rich. The
| board fired the guy that was trying to do that for them.
|
| > I was sad when my favorite pet died too, but then
| eventually you get a new pet that's just as good as a
| Worldcoin guy, maybe better.
|
| Doesn't matter if you or I am sad. It only matters if the
| talent at OpenAI is sad. The board made them sad. Sam and
| Sataya make them happy.
| righthand wrote:
| If it's fundamentally about the people, can you name some
| of these 90% that OpenAI couldn't live without? Other
| than Ilya? From where I'm sitting the 90% are replaceable
| in a flooded market of available software engineers.
|
| If Satya and Sam make them happy then go work for
| Microsoft. The board is calling their bluff right now.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Do you think they hired those people because they're
| useless?
|
| > The board is calling their bluff right now
|
| The board is not doing much of anything. They picked a
| CEO then she went to team sam. Then they picked another
| CEO and now he's threatening them with resignation. Not
| to mention the 3 other people they tried to bring into
| the role who refused.
| righthand wrote:
| No I think they hired them because they can do the job
| the agreed to pay them. I don't think these people are
| irreplaceable, that would be silly. That's what Sam
| Altman wants you to think.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > I don't think these people are irreplaceable, that
| would be silly.
|
| Maybe go and spend some time to bone up on who exactly
| works for OpenAI, what their track record is (education,
| publications and so on) and then tell me where you are
| going to find another 700 people that talented who will
| want to work for a company this damaged.
| righthand wrote:
| That's only if 700 people are all doing the same job. The
| entire company is key engineering talent? That seems
| unlikely.
| josephg wrote:
| > From where I'm sitting the 90% are replaceable in a
| flooded market of available software engineers.
|
| The market is flooded with junior engineers who have
| recently graduated from coding boot camps, and who might
| be good at building the specific types of software they
| have been shown. However, there is, as I understand it,
| still a dearth of senior engineers who can do the sort of
| work that OpenAI engineers are doing: building a novel
| product, with novel, cutting edge algorithms, at massive
| scale.
|
| If lots of people could easily replicate OpenAI's
| product, it seems strange that has nobody released a
| competitor to gpt4. Why is Microsoft - a company with one
| of the largest pools of software engineers in the world -
| clambering to hire all the engineers at OpenAI?
|
| It's because those people aren't replaceable. There is
| probably a global pool of maybe ten thousand people who
| can do the work that OpenAI is doing. And OpenAI has
| assembled a high performance team of ~800 of them. Those
| people are currently worth their weight in gold.
| righthand wrote:
| It is not flooded with junior engineers, it's engineers
| of all skill levels. I happen to know as someone who is
| senior looking for work right now. Most of the open
| positions are for senior and staff level positions.
|
| Microsoft isn't clambering to hire them, they're
| clambering for the IP. The OpenAI employees will get
| significantly less if they go over to Microsoft.
| gruturo wrote:
| I can't name them, no, but they're the people who built
| the thing that is being valued 90B. If they migrate
| (leadership included), so does the potential for future
| value. My feeling is that the 90B are moving. Sure, IP,
| existing contracts, licensing, you name it, will have
| residual value - but if I consider its board a clown car
| I will refrain from building on top of its API because
| they might not be around by lunchtime tomorrow. Enough
| people think like this, it starts spiraling down the
| drain.
| righthand wrote:
| Do you know the board is a clown car or is that what the
| media surrounding "the chaos" has told you. The board has
| been quiet is all. Does that automatically mean they're
| in the back flushing documents down the toilet and
| juggling balls? Or is there a better reason they feel no
| reason to publicly respond to a bunch of media flurry?
| kitsune_ wrote:
| About the 90%, this is very much a game of musical chairs
| and game theory in general. If your perception is that
| there is a high likelihood that Altman might return it's
| prudent to sign the letter. That's why I think the past
| few days were about shaping a narrative on Twitter and in
| the media in general.
| ben_w wrote:
| > OpenAI's valuation isn't because Sam Altman is worth
| $90B it's the tech. The tech is fine. Investors have no
| reason to worry about their investment in the tech.
|
| The following story is only about an hour old, but the
| investors are reportedly considering legal action against
| the board:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/technology/openai-investors-
| consider...
| code_runner wrote:
| They claimed to remove the CEO with cause. They have not
| provided cause. Even the twitch dude is asking for the
| cause.
|
| The board just firing off half-cocked and then going
| silent is probably a larger source the issues for
| employees than altman the person/leader. There is
| effectively nobody in the driver seat and the board can't
| be trusted to do anything in the best interests of the
| company.
| Clubber wrote:
| They did provide cause, you just don't accept what they
| said as valid or detailed enough.
| smegger001 wrote:
| No they made an extremely vague aligation with no
| concrete examples or evidence provided.
| golergka wrote:
| > The tech is fine.
|
| Have you ever maintained the software where the original
| team left? I have. And though it was much less complex
| and cutting edge than what OpenAI is doing, it was a
| massive pain with loss of knowledge and time.
| righthand wrote:
| Yes I have. I've even added features to legacy software
| and have made that a part of my mentoring to engineers to
| not reinvent the wheel and be good at reading and
| understanding code. I don't think it's a loss because the
| company has chosen to invest in that software. I include
| that time as onboarding for a project.
| ebalit wrote:
| OpenAI IP is not code that you can read. It's the know-
| how of their team.
|
| The board tried to get a merger with Anthropic, probably
| the second best team in the world for this type of work.
|
| They don't seem to think they can "just re-hire".
| cellar_door wrote:
| > Investors have no reason to worry about their
| investment in the tech
|
| What? They have a MASSIVE reason to worry: 3/4 board
| members are clearly not aligned with the profit motive.
| And D'angelo has a massive conflict of interest with
| monetizing their models.
| righthand wrote:
| How are they not aligned? They didn't oust Sam because of
| profit they ousted him for dishonesty.
| cellar_door wrote:
| are you serious? they're board members of the non-
| profit... they don't have any shares in the for-profit
| subsidiary and thus no financial incentive for
| commercializing the IP
|
| meanwhile, all the employees are paid via a profit
| sharing scheme. 98% of them are backing Altman because
| they don't want to see their compensation nuked.
| righthand wrote:
| How does ousting Altman nuke compensation? If they keep
| working there and bring in a new CEO equivalent to Altman
| with less dishonesty then everyone still wins, except
| Altman.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's not about what the board can or can not do. It's
| about whether they can make it stick. I'm thinking they
| can't but plenty of clever people here on HN think they
| can. Time will tell.
| bostonsre wrote:
| Is it the tech that is worth that much or the tech and
| the people that built the tech when future iterations of
| the product rely so heavily on the people? Losing 95
| percent of the employees will definitely impact
| delivering future products and that will definitely
| impact future profits and that has to impact valuation.
| usefulcat wrote:
| > OpenAI's valuation isn't because Sam Altman is worth
| $90B it's the tech.
|
| It's the current AND future tech. If most of the people
| who made that tech jump ship, that does not bode well for
| the future development of the technology. Maybe if the
| tech were something more ordinary, sure, but I think we
| both agree that it's not. For an investor, the future
| prospects of the company are generally a lot more
| important than its present state.
| onetimeuse92304 wrote:
| > OpenAI's valuation isn't because Sam Altman is worth
| $90B it's the tech.
|
| The IP might be worth something (no idea what kind of
| patents they hold), but the valuation is fundamentally
| based on the current products they have and promise of
| _future_ tech the company can create. And the future
| value stream far outweighs the current product.
|
| And none of the future product is going to happen without
| people.
|
| Of course, OpenAI without Sam will hire new people. But
| if they have already hired the best and they already had
| worthwhile experience, hiring new people has almost zero
| chance to recreate their ability to create new products
| at least in short/medium term.
|
| Finding the right people and hiring them is far more
| difficult than it is assumed. Dropping money on the
| problem does not solve more than half of it.
| 4death4 wrote:
| In a normal corporation, they would be empty shirts,
| because ultimately they serve at bequest of the share
| holders. But this is a non-profit so they actually have a
| lot of power and don't need to answer to anyone.
| hyperliner wrote:
| But don't they have to answer to the people who funded
| the nonprofit?
|
| I am ignorant, but you seem to be knowledgeable about
| this topic.
| mminer237 wrote:
| They need to comply with any profit-sharing or loan
| repayments, but funders can't have any control. The only
| person who would have input into whether or not the board
| is properly fulfilling its non-profit mission would be
| the Delaware attorney general.
| dumpsterdiver wrote:
| As we are all witnessing, they have to answer to their
| employees.
| narrator wrote:
| So no evidence of wrongdoing then:
|
| -----> WHY DID THEY DO IT? <------
|
| SERIOUSLY! They all just decided to wake up that day and
| say let's go fire Sam and blow up the company because "lack
| of candor" that they can't even give details on?? These are
| serious people doing serious stuff. These are not idiots.
| What the heck is going on? Can anyone explain?
| righthand wrote:
| Yeah there has been plenty of explanation. Sam Altman has
| competing interests and was looking to leverage OpenAI's
| tech in those interests.
| rokizero wrote:
| Source??
| elmepo wrote:
| Considering Ilya regrets his decision, implying this
| wasn't an e/acc vs safety debate, the two most likely
| scenarios to me appear to be:
|
| A) DeAngelo getting revenge for custom GPTs killing his
| company Poe's core product.
|
| B) The board discovering Sam working to use OpenAI
| resources/IP to further his own personal
| business/political goals.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Considering Ilya regrets his decision, implying this
| wasn't an e/acc vs safety debate
|
| Does it?
|
| If it was exactly that but he misjudged the external
| response and resulting consequences, that would also be a
| reason for regret.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's very well possible but there is as of now no
| evidence to substantiate that. But that is what it
| ultimately could have boiled down to and if there is even
| a remote chance that it can be spun that way you can be
| sure that chance will be exploited - even if it wasn't
| originally the case!
| ben_w wrote:
| My guess, and it is just a guess, is that there's some
| deep and fundamental position that the board members hold
| to, which Sam cannot describe well enough to pass the
| Ideological Turing Test[0], and this failure was
| perceived as being deliberately dishonest.
|
| Happens a lot. I know some on the very extreme outskirts
| of the left wing who look at the "splitters!" scene in
| Life of Brian and see themselves; I've seen it in
| arguments over programming language features; there's
| plenty of religious disputes that look like this from the
| outside; most of the Brexit arguments painted everyone
| who didn't agree with the speaker as being part of Team
| Other and merely an attempt to undermine Team Us; and so
| on.
|
| People can get very seriously angry about things that
| seem totally pointless from the outside.
|
| [0] https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/ideological-turing-
| tests
| jacquesm wrote:
| > These are not idiots.
|
| They shouldn't be. But short of temporary insanity I'm
| running out of ideas on what it could be.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Well, at least he's still there. Wonder if they have a
| successor lined up already and whether or not that
| successor has already offered to resign.
|
| It is all reminiscent of the Monty Python Judean people's
| front scene.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUHk2RSMCS8
|
| Though, arguably they showed more discipline.
| peteradio wrote:
| > Emmet is already threatening the board with resignation
|
| so says anonymous sources close to OpenAI who look
| suspiciously like MSFT wearing a fake mustache
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Good luck keeping those employees around even if they all
| decide to fold.
|
| These folks are being flooded with offers. Why would they
| work for an organization that doesn't care what 95% of them
| want?
| otteromkram wrote:
| Why keep them around when there are hordes of qualified,
| recently laid-off workers ready to take their spot?
|
| And, not every person from OpenAI is getting flooded with
| offers. Maybe a few key scientists/developers.
|
| If anything, putting OpenAI on their resume might get
| workers preferential treatment for an initial interview.
| Maybe.
| righthand wrote:
| Why would I jump ship for some lesser tech when OpenAI has
| everything I love working on?
| somedude895 wrote:
| > there are lots of people willing to take the defecting
| employees spots.
|
| Even 20% of employees leaving a company simultaneously is
| catastrophic. I think you're underestimating the effects
| here.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They might be willing to take the spots, but given that
| OpenAI has been vacuuming up all of the real talent they
| could find those surely aren't going to be in the same
| class as the team that they already have.
| righthand wrote:
| No I'm not, the effects are most likely short term snafu.
| yokoprime wrote:
| Even if only 1/4 of the people threating to resign, resigns,
| its still like 20% of the company leaving abruptly without
| any sort of handover. They might keep the light on for
| chatgpt and the API's, but its going to blunt growth and re-
| hiring isn't done in a heartbeat. You need to vet, test and
| onboard new employees. You're looking at a setback of at
| least 9-12 months of growth and research
| bostonsre wrote:
| It's one of the most innovative and impactful companies in a
| long time. I'm sure they'll be able to run gpt4, but good
| luck delivering gpt 5 (or 6 depending on how far along 5 is)
| when you lost entire teams that dreamt up and built previous
| iterations.
| jessenaser wrote:
| Current CEO is effectively the co-CEO of three board members at
| any given time.
|
| Given that:
|
| 1. Cycled three CEOs in less than a week.
|
| 2. The current interim CEO is in talks to resign (because the
| board still has not given a clear reason to why Sam was fired).
| adamnemecek wrote:
| Elizabeth Holmes.
| readyplayernull wrote:
| ChatGPT
| dools wrote:
| Jack's Empty Chair
| karmasimida wrote:
| It is safe to say OpenAI has become ungovernable since last
| Friday, unless that person is Sam/Greg
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Credit where credit is due for righting the ship!
|
| https://donhopkins.com/home/CostaConcordiaFTFY.jpg
| jacquesm wrote:
| Hehe. That's funny.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Damn, I was hoping you'd be horrified as a Dutchman.
| quonn wrote:
| If the board resigns that may be good for the company, but it
| may not be good for those on the board. If, on the other hand,
| the board prevails OpenAI may still turn out to be fine
| regardless.
|
| What do the board members have to loose by holding their
| ground?
| QuantumGood wrote:
| There was an internal announcement that Sam had said he would
| not be deciding overnight Monday.
| type0 wrote:
| Does anybody know who is currently CEO of OpenAI?
|
| They should assign ChatGPT to be CEO
| himaraya wrote:
| > What Bloomberg Intelligence Says
|
| "A potential return of Sam Altman as OpenAI's CEO will likely
| strengthen Microsoft's strategic positioning, especially if it's
| able to procure a seat on the new board. This could also be the
| preferred outcome for Microsoft, given a high legal risk if it
| hires a majority of OpenAI employees. We see little to no
| likelihood that Microsoft will buy OpenAI amid ongoing regulatory
| hurdles."
|
| -- Anurag Rana and Andrew Girard, analysts
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-21/altman-op...
| jacquesm wrote:
| > given a high legal risk if it hires a majority of OpenAI
| employees
|
| What legal risk would that be? All they have to do is to claim
| that they are protecting their interests, besides it is not as
| if Microsoft has ever been afraid of a legal challenge.
| phpnode wrote:
| MS and OpenAI certainly have non-solicitation clauses in
| their contracts. MS could afford the legal battle but isn't
| it better for them to wait it out and see what happens first?
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| https://twitter.com/kevin_scott/status/1726971608706031670
|
| Uh..the CTO of MS saying he will match OAI pay and will
| support their mutiny uh...definitely is solicitation.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| The letter from OpenAI employees to the board expressly
| says:
|
| "We, the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAl
| and join the newly announced Microsoft subsidiary run by
| Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. _Microsoft has assured us
| that there are positions for all OpenAl employees at this
| new subsidiary should we choose to join._ "
|
| I think it's safe to say there probably isn't any non-
| solicitation clause; or at least, it's a very weak one or
| specific one that Microsoft isn't violating (i.e. you
| won't reach out over LinkedIn).
| clhodapp wrote:
| Non-solicitation agreements are like super-illegal in
| California. See the "wage fixing" case against Apple,
| Google, Adobe, Pixar, Intuit, and Intel.
| manquer wrote:
| It is different between JV partners or between vendor and
| customer . If non solicit agreement were not legal for
| those , consulting companies either tech or management
| consulting will not be able to operate at all .
| jacquesm wrote:
| JV partners are entirely different form consulting
| arrangements though and these are some pretty exceptional
| circumstances.
| mjirv wrote:
| Unlikely. Non-poaching agreements are illegal under federal
| antitrust law.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Nonsense.
| jacquesm wrote:
| I've yet to see a more clear example of solicitation and MS
| is very much out front with this, presumably their ability
| to protect their interest in OpenAI outweighs the risk that
| the competition (Google, etc) would snap up the employees.
| Think of it as a stop-gap move to ensure that people won't
| leave and it looks different already. If there is any legal
| risk (which I doubt) then it is more than offset by their
| most simple excuse to ignore it, besides the legalities
| involving non-poaching agreements to begin with.
| blackoil wrote:
| Are non-solicitation clauses legal?? one between AAPL and
| GOOG were illegal.
| jacquesm wrote:
| They usually are not.
| phpnode wrote:
| I'm quite surprised by this, if only because of the
| regularity with which they appear in _standard_ software
| consulting agreements.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That depends very much on the locality. What's legal in
| one country will get you in serious trouble in many
| others.
|
| hi there!
| phpnode wrote:
| The clauses are common in the UK but I see them all the
| time from startups incorporated in Delaware. Maybe
| they're there for the deterrent factor. Also, hi!
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes, they get put in but if you try to enforce them
| you'll find that you can't.
|
| We sign contracts with non-poaching elements in them all
| the time because the companies we look at are afraid that
| we will use our inside knowledge to go after their best
| talent. But I suspect that just the basic protections an
| employee has under employment law would be enough to stop
| a company from trying to enforce this (we have a term for
| this in Dutch which is called 'broodroof' but I don't
| know any good English translation).
|
| That said: for Execs and consultants it is a different
| matter. But they are not rank-and-file employees.
| woeirua wrote:
| Of course. The value of their investment goes to zero if all the
| employees walk away.
| paul7986 wrote:
| The employees have lots of power especially if they organize
| and demand a lot. As of now feels like they are being treated
| as pawns.
| karmasimida wrote:
| OpenAI's value IS their employees.
|
| In aggregate they are secret sauce why GPT4 only exists in
| OpenAI not anywhere else. Data/compute are hard too, but some
| competitors do have the capacity.
| Thaxll wrote:
| This whole story is very entertaining.
| robomartin wrote:
| How does someone come back without being livid about what just
| happened?
|
| Without giving it much thought, my first impulse would be that
| every single person who participated in the ousting would have to
| resign and go away immediately. I cannot conceive of any way to
| clear the air and approach the work to be done with a clear
| mental state.
|
| Too vindictive or appropriately restorative?
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Ilya can stay, bygones be bygones. He was there since the
| beginning. everyone else must go.
| martingalex2 wrote:
| I'm interested in whether this has potential trickle effect in
| other startups where the staff threaten to mutiny if they don't
| like the change in leadership. Flipping crazy and precedent
| setting for corporate governance.
| methodical wrote:
| Breaking: investors want company to not tank in value due to
| departure of CEO and 90% of employees
| startupsfail wrote:
| I would call for an attempt to restore the nonprofit structure
| and the board, using a CA government intervention that regulates
| nonprofits.
|
| Sam Altman certainly was very perceptive
| -https://blog.samaltman.com/machine-intelligence-part-1
|
| But it does seem that the concentration of power was getting a
| bit high. And the fact that the nonprofit that was created to
| balance exactly that had disintegrated is not a good sign.
|
| This structure of the nonprofit seems to be a very smart move by
| some very smart people. Visionaries. I'd say it needs to be
| restored and rebalanced.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| This is not a structure that will actually work in the real
| world and everyone involved knows it.
|
| Why? Because the profit half is why the non-profit would ever
| have power.
|
| If the company is led to slow progress down or reduce profit
| motivations, other companies will fill that gap and the non-
| profit doesnt have power over AI anymore.
|
| To be the source of AI, to control it, means to have the money
| to pay the best, to build the sort of place that AI dev can
| thrive. Only then can you control what gets out there. This
| will lead a rift between the pro-profit and non-profit halves
| and when the investors and clients get limited by the
| nonprofits, they will work to kill the non-profit. This is what
| reality, not dream company world, looks like. Might I add, the
| board was stacked from the start. They have a competitor on the
| board regulating the profit half. Few if any of them are
| actually respectable or successful leaders.
|
| This ends with the Board gone and replaced with one pro-profit
| for MS, or MS holding all the cards internally. No version of
| this actually will work long-term and it never would. People
| inventing it thought they could make a dream company of sorts
| with no downsides, just non-profit smarts running a profitable
| company...but it isn't a balanced system. The money wins out.
| mminer237 wrote:
| OpenAI is incorporated in Delaware, so it would be up to the
| Delaware attorney general to make any direction as to the non-
| profit purpose, which she has thus far ignored.
| endisneigh wrote:
| The employees won't resign and I doubt Microsoft will match the
| hypothetical 90B valuation for their profit participation units,
| otherwise they would've left already (Microsoft has agreed to
| match).
|
| The investors have no power here and are effectively irrelevant.
| The remaining board had little to lose. The charter explicitly
| calls investment risky, so they're good there too.
|
| > The Company's duty to this mission and the principles advanced
| in the OpenAl, Inc. Charter take precedence over any obligation
| to generate a profit. The Company may never make a profit, and
| the Company is under no obligation to do so.
|
| Even if the employees left I'm sure there is a class of person
| who would join still.
|
| My questions are who will be permanently ceo, and why did they
| foolishly accuse Altman of lying. Luckily for them everyone lies
| and they can just pick something, but it was a bad move.
| dgacmu wrote:
| The investors have extremely deep pockets and good lawyers. I
| would not want to be on that board even with very good D&O
| insurance. It's not bulletproof, and a lawsuit by Altman, in
| particular, could be excluded from coverage and force them to
| defend themselves out of pocket.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Even if they wanted to sue, the employees would have to make
| some decision, forcing the issue regardless so I doubt it
| matters.
| dgacmu wrote:
| I'm objecting to the comment that the remaining board has
| little to lose. It's possible for sufficiently motivated
| investors, former board members, and employees to make
| their life awfully miserable.
| Pigalowda wrote:
| It's been less than 2 business days. It probably took you
| longer to decide to wash your car much less immediately pack up
| and move jobs.
| golergka wrote:
| > I doubt Microsoft will match the hypothetical 90B valuation
| for their profit share units, otherwise they would've left
| already (Microsoft has agreed to match)
|
| If Microsoft won't, Google or Meta will.
| endisneigh wrote:
| I doubt it. The ppus at a 90 billion valuation puts even late
| employees in the 7 figure territory.
|
| They can afford it, but ultimately the brand is what's
| valuable. The only reason both Google and meta have not
| released something like gpt4 is because it's not profitable
| and paying hundreds of millions for dozens of employees or
| billions for everyone isn't really going to be worth it.
|
| Ironically, it would be better to let OpenAI die and let all
| of these people start their own things, and if one of them
| creates agi then pay that person the 90 billion.
| machinekob wrote:
| Who would buy 500 people for 90B without tech, dataset,
| company culture they are pretty much your another excellent
| ML guys or team.
|
| They can make great things for sure but not more than your
| organisation will allow them
|
| Im pretty sure this big corporations aren't as fast moving
| and "we dont care about law/copyright" as ML startups, and
| people working in Meta/Google are as good as your typical
| OpenAI guy just with massive corporation on their back and
| this wont change.
| golergka wrote:
| Matching 90B valuation for compensations would only equal
| 90B if you assume that 100% of that valuation went to
| employees. Which sounds pretty far fetched, if you ask me.
| xyst wrote:
| Late OpenAI investors sweating right now looking at the potential
| bag hold in their portfolio.
| tcgv wrote:
| Any OpenAI employee here willing to (anonymously or not) share
| your view on the subject?
|
| Is support for Sam Altman's return that strong within the
| company, or are the media and investors exaggerating for their
| own sake?
| maxdoop wrote:
| 98% of employees legitimately signed the letter wishing Sam to
| be reinstated, so I'm not sure how media or investors play in
| to that at all.
| foota wrote:
| Does anyone know what control the investors have over their
| funds? I've seen mention that it might be cloud credits that they
| could pull, but I'm not sure I understand how they could do that
| unless it was part of their contract.
| arisAlexis wrote:
| The whole idea was that investors wouldn't push ...
| jmerz wrote:
| As of yesterday this situation has crossed into omnishambles
| territory.
|
| Sunday you could still have reversed this and treated it as a
| blip. Now it's Tuesday--there's not really an option anymore that
| doesn't cause some kind of lasting damage.
| alberth wrote:
| If Sam was reinstated as CEO, does that really solve anything?
|
| Isn't the underlining issue the conflict of their own nonprofit
| vs profit status & motives.
| curiousllama wrote:
| Imagine being on a PIP at OpenAI right now.
|
| "Hey Microsoft - you for real about that offer?"
| russdpale wrote:
| All bow before the mighty hand of the dollar.
| j45 wrote:
| https://archive.is/XoGvJ
| d--b wrote:
| Honest question:
|
| Is Altman really worth it? I am surprised by the internal
| support.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| If you have profit sharing, the drive for commercialization is
| worth it, as is making the big commercializing partner who
| could otherwise be a competitor happy.
|
| Profit-based compensation in a firm where profit is nominally
| at best a secondary goal creates misaligned incentives between
| employees and employer compared to fixed wage/salary.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| does this story remind anyone of when Facebook investors started
| crying about needing new leadership?
|
| same story here - investors knew what they were buying into. A
| profit capped for profit, OWNED BY A NON PROFIT. Said non profit
| could, at any time, make decisions that are not optimal for
| profit. Surprise surprise.
|
| Of course they'll push, but I doubt they'll get any sympathy.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| It's not reported as much as it should be, but at one point in
| 2021 the OpenAI board had 10 people on it. In the beginning of
| 2023 it had 9 people. 3 stepped down over the course of 2023 and
| were not replaced, leaving only 6 in place by the time of last
| week's fiasco. 2 of the 6 were then removed on Friday leaving 4.
| The typical large company will have 10-12 people on the board.
| Apparently, OpenAI's bylaws do not set a fixed size for the board
| and allow the board itself to elect and remove members and allows
| a simple majority to take any action without even requiring a
| formal meeting. It's a glaring failure of governance that OpenAI
| now has a 4 person board that seems split and paralyzed over what
| to do next. The path forward has to include not only all 4 of the
| current board members resigning but a change in bylaws to
| establish a larger board with a balance of insiders and outsiders
| and much clearer operating procedures.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Apparently, OpenAI's bylaws do not set a fixed size for the
| board and allow the board itself to elect and remove members
| and allows a simple majority to take any action without even
| requiring a formal meeting.
|
| For their sake I do hope they read the bylaws and that your
| 'apparently' doesn't come back to haunt them because then they
| are in even more trouble.
|
| > The path forward has to include not only all 4 of the current
| board members resigning but a change in bylaws to establish a
| larger board with a balance of insiders and outsiders and much
| clearer operating procedures.
|
| Amen to that. It might even end with the removal of the
| oversight board and the whole non-profit construct.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| If not removal then at least a clear split into two separate
| (for-profit and non-profit) entities with no parent-sub
| relationship. Then have an agreement where the for-profit
| entity commits to a specified funding level for the non-
| profit in exchange for a license to commercially use/resell
| the IP.
| ChatGTP wrote:
| This is the type of thing Microsoft should known about before
| investing, billions in the company.
|
| They are crying foul now and it might work out ok. But they
| were asking for it.
| woopsn wrote:
| Firing Sam Altman was a truly great move and I hope the board
| wins out. Investors are furious... Who cares? That's why it is a
| nonprofit, to protect them from being forced towards maximizing
| growth and profit at the expense of their mission. Let Sam and
| whoever wants go to Microsoft and copy the chat product, wishing
| them the best.
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