[HN Gopher] Sam Altman Slams Meta's AI Talent Poaching: 'Mission...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Sam Altman Slams Meta's AI Talent Poaching: 'Missionaries Will Beat
       Mercenaries'
        
       Author : spenvo
       Score  : 82 points
       Date   : 2025-07-01 18:08 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
        
       | ilioscio wrote:
       | At least from the outside, OpenAI's messaging about this seems
       | obnoxiously deluded, maybe some of those employees left because
       | it starts feels like a cult built on foundations of self
       | importance? Or maybe they really do know some things we don't
       | know, but it seems like a lot of people are eager to keep giving
       | them that excuse.
       | 
       | But then again, maybe they have such a menagerie of individuals
       | with their heads in the clouds that they've created something of
       | an echo chamber about the 'pure vision' that _only they_ can
       | manifest.
        
         | reactordev wrote:
         | I think it's more of the latter. We've already seen others beat
         | them in their own game. Only for them to come back with a new
         | model.
         | 
         | In the end, this is the same back and forth that Apple and Sun
         | shared in the late 90s or Meta and Google in 2014. We could
         | have made non-competes illegal today but we didn't.
        
           | toast0 wrote:
           | (post employment) Non-competes have been non-enforcable in
           | California since 1872. They became illegal in California last
           | year.
           | 
           | A federal rule would be nice, but the state rule where a lot
           | of the development happens could be sufficient.
        
         | dandanua wrote:
         | In our times, every narcissist sees himself as a saint and a
         | messiah on a mission to save the world, while doing the
         | complete opposite of that. And they get very angry when they
         | see other narcissists trying to do the same.
        
         | shredprez wrote:
         | Ehh, this take feels ungenerous to me. You don't have to
         | believe a private firm is a holy order for it to benefit from a
         | culture filled with "we believe this specific project is
         | Important" people vs "will work at whatever shop drops the most
         | cash" people.
         | 
         | Mercenaries by definition select for individual dollar
         | outcomes, and its impossible for that not to impact the way
         | they operate in groups, which is generally to the group's
         | detriment unless management is incredibly good at building
         | group-first incentive structures that don't stomp individual
         | outcomes.
         | 
         | That said, mercenary-missionaries are definitely a thing.
         | They're unstoppable forces culturally and economically, and
         | that could be who we're seeing move around here.
        
         | evklein wrote:
         | Yeah it's a tough spot he's found himself in. How do you
         | convince people who know more about this stuff than anybody
         | that you're barreling towards something that's an
         | improbability? It seems that most of them have made their
         | choice to turn more towards reality, the material reality, and
         | register their skill with an organization that holds that in
         | higher regard. I can't blame them, and neither can he, but he
         | also can't help himself when it comes to reiterating the hype.
         | He might be projecting about that 'deep-seated cultural issue'
         | he's prescribing to meta, and lashing out against those who
         | don't accept it.
        
           | lenerdenator wrote:
           | > I can't blame them, and neither can he
           | 
           | He's certainly trying with statements like this.
           | 
           | To be fair, he's hardly alone. Business is built on dupers
           | and dupees. The duper talks about how important the mission
           | of the business is while taking the value of the labor of the
           | dupee. If he had to work for the money he pays the dupee, he
           | would be a _lot_ less interested in the mission.
        
       | _stillmind wrote:
       | https://archive.ph/9i9vo
        
       | ipsum2 wrote:
       | The game theoretic aspect of this is quite interesting. If Meta
       | will make OpenAI's model improvements open source, then the value
       | of every poached employee will be worth significantly less as
       | time goes on. That means it's in the employees best interest to
       | leave first, if their goal is to maximize their income.
        
         | bilbo0s wrote:
         | Open source could also be a bait and switch.
         | 
         | ie - Zuck has no intention to keep opening up the models he
         | creates. Thus, he knows he can spend the money to get the
         | talent. Because he has every intention to make it back.
        
           | HardCodedBias wrote:
           | Zuck has the best or the second best distribution on the
           | planet.
           | 
           | If he neutralizes the tech advantage of other companies his
           | chances of winning rise.
        
         | jekwoooooe wrote:
         | Allegedly they were offered 100m just in the first year. I
         | think they will be fine
        
           | paxys wrote:
           | That was immediately proven to be false, both by Meta
           | leadership and the poached researchers themselves. Sam Altman
           | just pulled the number out of his ass in an interview.
        
           | ipsum2 wrote:
           | That's my point. The ones that left early got a large sum of
           | money. The ones that leave later will get less. That would
           | incentivize people to be the first to leave.
        
       | freejazz wrote:
       | Like the culture of OpenAI where Microsoft threatened to poach
       | the entire staff so they caved?
        
       | lenerdenator wrote:
       | For a group of people who talk incessantly about the value of
       | unrestricted markets, tech bros sure hate having to participate
       | in free labor markets.
       | 
       | Being a missionary for big ideas doesn't mean dick to a creditor.
        
         | reverendsteveii wrote:
         | Capitalists don't like markets, or at least not the markets
         | that we're told capitalism will bring about. Those markets are
         | supposed to increase competition and drive down prices until
         | companies are making just barely enough to survive. What
         | capitalist wants that for himself? He wants decreased
         | competitions and sky high prices for himself, and increased
         | competition and lower prices for his competitors and suppliers.
        
           | Dracophoenix wrote:
           | > Capitalists don't like markets, or at least not the markets
           | that we're told capitalism will bring about.
           | 
           | The "markets" most people learn about are artificial Econ 101
           | constructions. They're pedagogical tools for explaining
           | elasticity and competition under the assumption that all
           | widgets are equally and infinitely fungible. An assumption
           | which ignores marginal value, individual preferences,
           | innovation and other things that make real markets.
           | 
           | > What capitalist wants that for himself? He wants decreased
           | competitions and sky high prices for himself, and increased
           | competition and lower prices for his competitors and
           | suppliers.
           | 
           | The capitalist wants to be left to trade as he sees fit
           | without state intervention.
        
       | mlinhares wrote:
       | That didn't work for the American colonies, Portugal and Spain
       | were very focused on being missionaries and were beaten by the
       | Dutch and Brits that just wanted to make money.
        
         | hollerith wrote:
         | The motive for settling the colonies in New England was
         | emphatically not to make money.
        
           | echelon_musk wrote:
           | How about the Caribbean?
        
             | bilbo0s wrote:
             | Name the Caribbean nations that were the "winners"?
        
               | echelon_musk wrote:
               | You've missed my point entirely.
        
           | MangoToupe wrote:
           | That really depends on the time period. The puritanical core
           | of the Massachusetts Bay Colony was certainly replaced by
           | commercial/trade interests long before their war with the
           | crown.
        
           | dragonwriter wrote:
           | The idea that the Spanish and Portuguese colonial effort
           | wasn't droven by economic gain above all else is also beyond
           | silly.
        
         | elros wrote:
         | I believe Portuguese got there looking for a shorter route to
         | India (money) and eventually settled the land for gold, silver,
         | brazilwood, diamonds and sugarcane (money).
        
           | mlinhares wrote:
           | Nah, they very much wanted to do missionary work and find
           | Preston John, they invested in a lot of shitty missions for
           | absolutely no reason other than to try to convert people to
           | the church.
           | 
           | Conquerors is a great read on the subject: https://en.wikiped
           | ia.org/wiki/Conquerors:_How_Portugal_Forge...
           | 
           | And don't get me wrong, they were very successful at filling
           | their pockets with gold, but could have been even more if
           | they were mostly mercenaries like the brits and the dutch.
        
         | 0xbadcafebee wrote:
         | 90% of the reason Spain and Portugal explored the new world was
         | for wealth (spices, gold/silver, sugar, brazilwood). The rest
         | of the reason was to spread their religion and increase their
         | national power. Missions only popped up 30 years after they
         | first began colonization.
         | 
         | The Dutch, British, and French were initially brought to the
         | new world because they'd heard how rich it was and wanted a
         | piece of the pie. It took them a while to establish a hold
         | because the Spanish defended it so well (incumbents usually
         | win) and also they kept settling frozen wastelands rather than
         | tropical islands.
         | 
         | The religiously persecuted groups (who were in no way state-
         | sponsored) came 120 years after Spain's first forays.
        
         | HWR_14 wrote:
         | In what way did the Spanish lose out to the Dutch or the Brits?
         | Did you only think of North America and forget everything south
         | of the rio grande (and a good deal north of it)?
        
       | codingwagie wrote:
       | The value of these researchers to meta is surely more than a few
       | billion. Love seeing free markets benefit the world
        
         | ipsum2 wrote:
         | How do you figure? If you assume that Meta gets the state of
         | the art model, revenue is non-existent, unless they start a
         | premium tier or put ads. Even then, its not clear if they will
         | exceed the money spent on inference and training compute.
        
           | HWR_14 wrote:
           | It's worth a few billion (easily) to keep people's default
           | time sink as aimlessly playing on FV/IG as opposed to
           | chatting with ChatGPT. Even if that scroll is replaced by
           | chatting with llama as opposed to seeing posts.
        
       | spenvo wrote:
       | OpenAI's tight spot:
       | 
       | 1) They are far from profitability. 2) Meta is aggressively
       | making their _top_ talent more expensive, and outright draining
       | it. 3) Deepseek /Baidu/etc are dramatically undercutting them. 4)
       | Anthropic and (to a lesser extent?) Google appear to be beating
       | them (or, charitably, matching them) on AI's best use case so
       | far: coding. 5) Altman is becoming less like-able with every
       | unnecessary episode of drama; and OpenAI has most of the stink
       | from the initial (valid) grievance of "AI-companies are stealing
       | from artists". The endless hype and FUD cycles, going back to
       | 2022, have worn industry people out, as well as the flip flop on
       | "please regulate us". 6) Its original, core strategic alliance
       | with Microsoft is extremely strained. 7) and, related to #6, its
       | corporate structure is extremely unorthodox and likely needs to
       | change in order to attract more investment, which it must (to
       | train new frontier models). Microsoft would need to sign off on
       | the new structure. 8) Musk is sniping at its heels, especially
       | through legal actions.
       | 
       | Barring a major breakthrough with GPT-5, which I don't see
       | happening, how do they prevail through all of this and become a
       | _sustainable_ frontier AI lab and company? Maybe the answer is
       | they drop the frontier model aspect of their business? If we are
       | really far from AGI and are instead in a plateau of diminishing
       | returns that may not be a huge deal, because having a 5% better
       | model likely doesn 't matter that much to their primary bright
       | spot:
       | 
       | Brand loyalty from the average person to ChatGPT is the best
       | bright spot, and OpenAI successfully eating Google's search
       | market. Their numbers there have been truly massive from the
       | beginning, and are I think the most defensible. Google AI
       | Overviews continue to be completely awful in comparison.
        
         | nashashmi wrote:
         | They have majority of the attention and market cap. They have
         | runway. And that part is the most important thing. Others don't
         | have the users to grand test developments.
        
           | ninininino wrote:
           | I'm not so sure they have runway.
           | 
           | XAI has Elon's fortune to burn, and Spacex to fund it.
           | 
           | Gemini has the ad and search business of Google to fund it.
           | 
           | Meta has the ad revenue of IG+FB+WhatsApp+Messenger.
           | 
           | Whereas OpenAI $10 billion in annual revenue, but low
           | switching costs for both consumers and developers using their
           | APIs.
           | 
           | If you stay at the forefront of frontier models, you need to
           | keep burning money like crazy, that requires raising rounds
           | repeatedly for OpenAI, whereas the tech giants can just use
           | their fortunes doing it.
        
         | jekwoooooe wrote:
         | OpenAI has no shot without a huge cash infusion and to offer
         | similar packages. Meta opened the door.
        
         | blueblisters wrote:
         | _If_ they can turn ChatGPT into a free cash flow machine, they
         | will be in a much more comfortable position. They have the
         | lever to do so (ads) but haven 't shown much interest there
         | yet.
         | 
         | I can't imagine how they will compete if they need to continue
         | burning and needing to raise capital until 2030.
        
           | storgendibal wrote:
           | The interest and actions are there now: Hiring Fidji Simo to
           | run "applications" strongly indicates a move to an ad-based
           | business model. Fidji's meteoric rise at Facebook was because
           | she helped land the pivot to the monster business that is
           | mobile ads on Facebook, and she was supposedly tapped as
           | Instacart's CEO because their business potential was on ads
           | for CPGs, more than it was on skimming delivery fees and
           | marked up groceries.
        
         | wavemode wrote:
         | > how do they prevail through all of this and become a
         | sustainable frontier AI lab and company?
         | 
         | I doubt that OpenAI needs or wants to be a sustainable company
         | right now. They can probably continue to drum up hype and
         | investor money for many years. As long as people keep writing
         | them blank checks, why not keep spending them? Best case they
         | invent AGI, worst case they go bankrupt, which is irrelevant
         | since it's not their own money they're risking.
        
         | logsr wrote:
         | The biggest problem OAI has is that they don't own a data
         | source. Meta, Google, and X all have existing platforms for
         | sourcing real time data at global scale. OAI has ChatGPT, which
         | gives them some unique data, but it is tiny and very limited
         | compared to what their competitors have.
         | 
         | LLMs trained on open data will regress because there is too
         | much LLM generated slop polluting the corpus now. In order for
         | models to improve and adapt to current events they need fresh
         | human created data, which requires a mechanism to separate
         | human from AI content, which requires owning a platform where
         | content is created, so that you can deploy surveillance tools
         | to correctly identify human created content.
        
       | dinkdonkbell wrote:
       | Didn't many of the missionaries at OpenAI go to Thinking Machines
       | Lab?
       | 
       | https://thinkingmachines.ai/
        
       | 9283409232 wrote:
       | Is he comparing working at OpenAI to religion? Is that not a
       | crazy analogy to make? Cult like behavior to say the least. It's
       | also funny the entire business of AI is poaching content from
       | people.
        
       | Yeul wrote:
       | AI as a religion should scare any investor. Where are the
       | products that you can sell for moolah?
        
         | lenerdenator wrote:
         | The product is a model that takes knowledge and puts it in a
         | form that can act on it without a human doing the acting.
         | 
         | You sell it to people who don't want to pay other people while
         | getting the same productivity.
        
         | bagels wrote:
         | They have product that they derive revenue from.
        
         | pera wrote:
         | Religions and cults are actually extremely lucrative.
         | 
         | For many investors the product is the hype.
        
         | rpjt wrote:
         | The most popular religions are super wealthy and lucrative
        
         | rchaud wrote:
         | Religion delivers a recurring revenue model that isn't taxed
         | and where criminal confessions can't be used in court if made
         | to a high-ranking company officer. It's the perfect business.
        
       | cs702 wrote:
       | I like sama and many other folks at OpenAI, but I have to call
       | things how I see them:
       | 
       |  _" What Meta is doing will, in my opinion, lead to very deep
       | cultural problems. We will have more to share about this soon but
       | it's very important to me we do it fairly and not just for people
       | who Meta happened to target."_
       | 
       | Translation from corporate-speak: "We're not as rich as Meta."
       | 
       |  _" Most importantly of all, I think we have the most special
       | team and culture in the world. We have work to do to improve our
       | culture for sure; we have been through insane hypergrowth. But we
       | have the core right in a way that I don't think anyone else quite
       | does, and I'm confident we can fix the problems."_
       | 
       | Translation from corporate-speak: "We're not as rich as Meta."
       | 
       |  _" And maybe more importantly than that, we actually care about
       | building AGI in a good way." "Other companies care more about
       | this as an instrumental goal to some other mission. But this is
       | our top thing, and always will be." "Missionaries will beat
       | mercenaries."_
       | 
       | Translation from corporate-speak: "I am high as a kite." (All
       | companies building AGI claim to be doing it in a good way.)
        
         | mzajc wrote:
         | > "But we have the core right in a way that I don't think
         | anyone else quite does"
         | 
         | Translation from corpospeak: "I think my pivot to for-profit is
         | very clever and unique" :)
        
         | ASalazarMX wrote:
         | The perfect corollary is that Altman is as mercenary, if not
         | more, than Zuckerberg, given all the power grabs he did in
         | OpenAI. Even the "Open" in OpenAI is a joke.
         | 
         | He just has less options because OpenAI is not as rich as Meta.
        
       | philosophty wrote:
       | Two rich kids who have mostly paid-to-win their way into the game
       | are predictably fighting using money because that's all they
       | bring to the table.
        
       | davidcbc wrote:
       | Does he have the same conviction when people from other companies
       | decide to join OpenAI?
        
         | FirmwareBurner wrote:
         | It's only bad when other people do it.
        
         | rchaud wrote:
         | "Apostates who turned to darkness" vs "Converts who saw the
         | light".
        
       | neilv wrote:
       | Can someone make an honest argument for how OpenAI staff are
       | missionaries, after the coup?
       | 
       | I'd be very happy to be convinced that supporting the coup was
       | the right move for true-believer missionaries.
       | 
       | (Edit: It's an honest and obvious question, and I think that the
       | joke responses risk burying or discouraging honest answers.)
        
         | throwawayq3423 wrote:
         | 100% agree. You are hearing the dictator claim righteousness.
        
         | ASalazarMX wrote:
         | I'd bet 100 quatloos that your comment will not have honest
         | arguments below. You can't nurture missionaries in an
         | exploitative environment.
        
           | CamperBob2 wrote:
           | Not to mention, missionaries _are_ exploitative. They 're
           | trying to harvest souls for God or (failing the appearance of
           | God to accept their bounty) to expand the influence of their
           | earthbound church.
           | 
           | The end result of missionary activity is often something like
           | https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/feb/25/us-
           | evang... .
           | 
           | Bottom line, "But... but I'm like a _missionary_! " isn't my
           | go-to argument when I'm trying to convince people that my own
           | motives are purer than my rival's.
        
           | TylerE wrote:
           | Eh? Plenty of cults like Jehivahs Witnesses that are
           | exploitive as hell.
        
         | kenjackson wrote:
         | I'm not very informed about the coup -- but doesn't it just
         | depend on what side most of the employees sat/sit on? I don't
         | know how much of the coup was just egos or really an argument
         | about philosophy that the rank and file care about. But I think
         | this would be the argument.
        
           | kevindamm wrote:
           | There was a petition with a startlingly high percentage of
           | employees signing it, but no telling how many of them felt
           | pressured to to keep their job.
        
             | Analemma_ wrote:
             | The thing where dozens of them simultaneously posted
             | "OpenAI is nothing without its people" on Twitter during
             | the coup was so creepy, like actual Jonestown vibes. In an
             | environment like that, there's no way there wasn't immense
             | pressure to fall into line.
        
               | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
               | That seems like kind of an uncharitable take when it can
               | otherwise be explained as collective political action.
               | I'd see the point if it were some repeated ritual but if
               | they just posted something on Twitter one time then it
               | sounds more like an attempt to speak more loudly with a
               | collective voice.
        
         | actionfromafar wrote:
         | An honest argument is that cults often have missionaries.
        
         | m463 wrote:
         | Missionary (from wikipedia):
         | 
         |  _A missionary is a member of a religious group who is sent
         | into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services
         | to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health
         | care, and economic development._ -
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missionary
         | 
         | Post coup, they are both for-profit entities.
         | 
         | So the difference seems to be that when meta releases its
         | models (like bibles), it is promoting its faith more openly
         | than openai, which interposes itself as an intermediary.
        
         | ponector wrote:
         | That is just an act of corpo-ceo bulshitting employees and
         | press about high moral standards, mission, etc. Don't trust any
         | of his words.
        
           | noname120 wrote:
           | Yes, especially not his
        
           | casualscience wrote:
           | yeah, I used to work in the medical tech space, they love to
           | tell you how much you should be in it for the mission and
           | that's why your pay is 1/3 what you could make at FAANG... of
           | course, when it came to our sick customers, they need to pay
           | market rates.
        
           | sitkack wrote:
           | Anytime someone tells you to be in it for the mission, you
           | are expendable and underpaid.
        
             | ponector wrote:
             | That could be genuine words. Mission is to be expendable
             | and make them rich.
             | 
             | Don't forget about the mission during next round of layoffs
             | and record high quarterly profits.
        
         | pj_mukh wrote:
         | Honest answer*:
         | 
         | I think building super intelligence for the company that owns
         | and will deploy the super intelligence in service of tech's
         | original sin (the algorithmic feed) is a 100x worse than
         | whatever OpenAI is doing, save maybe OpenAI's defense contract,
         | which I have no details about.
         | 
         | Meta will try to buoy this by open-sourcing it, which, good for
         | them, but I don't think it's enough. If Meta wants to save
         | itself, it should re-align its business model away from the
         | feeds.
         | 
         | In that way, as a missionary chasing super intelligence, I'd
         | prefer OpenAI.
         | 
         | *because I don't have an emotional connection to OpenAI's
         | changing corporate structure away from being a non-profit:
        
           | makeitdouble wrote:
           | As a thought exercise, OpenAI can partner to apply the
           | technology to:
           | 
           | - online gambling
           | 
           | - kids gambling
           | 
           | - algorithmic advertising
           | 
           | Are these any better ? All of these are of course money wells
           | and a logical move for a for-profit IMHO.
           | 
           | And they can of course also integrate into a Meta
           | competitor's algorithmic feeds as well, putting them at the
           | same level as Meta in that regard.
           | 
           | All in all, I'm not seeing them having any moral high ground,
           | even purely hypotheticaly.
        
             | pj_mukh wrote:
             | Wait if an online gambling company uses OpenAI API then
             | hosts it all on AWS, somehow OpenAI is more morally
             | culpable than AWS? Why?
        
               | makeitdouble wrote:
               | I saw the discussion as whether OpenAI is on a better
               | moral ground than Meta, so this was my angle.
               | 
               | On where the moral burden lies in your example, I'd argue
               | we should follow the money and see what has the most
               | impact on that online gambling company's bottom line.
               | 
               | Inherently that could have the most impact on what
               | happens when that company succeeds: if those become
               | OpenAI's biggest clients, it wouldn't be surprising that
               | they put more and more weight in being well suited for
               | online gambling companies.
               | 
               | Does AWS get specially impacted by hosting online
               | gambling services ? I honestly don't expect them to, not
               | more than community sites or concert ticket sellers.
        
         | delfinom wrote:
         | This is just a CEO gaslighting his employees to "think of the
         | mission" instead of paying up
         | 
         | No different than "we are a family"
        
           | buremba wrote:
           | But "we are family"
        
           | logsr wrote:
           | > "I have never been more confident in our research roadmap,"
           | he wrote. "We are making an unprecedented bet on compute, but
           | I love that we are doing it and I'm confident we will make
           | good use of it. Most importantly of all, I think we have the
           | most special team and culture in the world. We have work to
           | do to improve our culture for sure; we have been through
           | insane hypergrowth. But we have the core right in a way that
           | I don't think anyone else quite does, and I'm confident we
           | can fix the problems."
           | 
           | tldr. knife fights in the hallways over the remaining life
           | boats.
        
       | throwawayq3423 wrote:
       | I'm sorry how is the mission of OpenAI any different than their
       | competitors? They are for-profit they offer absurd salaries, etc.
        
         | jekwoooooe wrote:
         | No no no don't you get it they have this multi entity "non
         | profit" and something something "capped profit" yet everyone is
         | employed by the for profit. But they just want to give AGI for
         | free right
        
       | bluecalm wrote:
       | Do I "poach" a stock when I offer more money for it than the last
       | transaction value? "Poaching" employees is just price discovery
       | by market forces. Sounds healthy to me. Meta is being the good
       | guys for once.
        
         | jimmywetnips wrote:
         | I poached 3 baconators and the last 2 frosties away from an
         | elderly couple at wendys last night and oh boy was I
         | discovering some market forces this morning
        
           | datavirtue wrote:
           | You must be new here. No joking allowed.
        
           | nativeit wrote:
           | The elderly couple showed up with baseball bats?
        
       | neuroelectron wrote:
       | "Do Not Be Explicitly Useful"--Strategic Uselessness as Liability
       | Buffer
       | 
       | This is a deliberate obfuscation pattern. If the model is ever
       | consistently useful at a high-risk task (e.g., legal advice,
       | medical interpretation, financial strategy), it triggers legal,
       | regulatory, and reputational red flags. a. Utility -
       | Responsibility
       | 
       | If a system is predictably effective, users will reasonably rely
       | on it.
       | 
       | And reliance implies accountability. Courts, regulators, and the
       | public treat consistent output as an implied service, not just a
       | stochastic parrot.
       | 
       | This is where AI providers get scared: being too good makes you
       | an unlicensed practitioner or liable agent.
       | 
       | b. Avoid "Known Use Cases"
       | 
       | Some companies will actively scrub capabilities once they're
       | discovered to work "too well."
       | 
       | For instance:
       | 
       | A model that reliably interprets radiology scans might have that
       | capability turned off.
       | 
       | A model that can write compelling legal motions will start
       | refusing prompts that look too paralegal-ish or insert nonsense
       | case law citation.
       | 
       | I think we see this a lot from ChatGPT. It's constantly getting
       | worse in real world uses while exceeding at benchmarks. They're
       | likely, and probably forced, to cheat on benchmarks by using
       | "leaked" data.
        
       | joshdavham wrote:
       | I think Meta already has very deep cultural problems.
       | 
       | If you've ever browsed teamblind.com (which I strongly recommend
       | against as I hate that site), you'll see what the people who work
       | at Meta are like.
        
         | meta_ai_x wrote:
         | That's true with every Tech company employees. They all want $1
         | M TC and work 10 hours / week
        
           | darth_avocado wrote:
           | You're describing the management not the employees
        
         | thomassmith65 wrote:
         | Off topic, but the existence of this teamblind.com site escaped
         | my notice till now.
         | 
         | Is there a particular reason to hate it (aside from it being
         | social media)?
        
           | beering wrote:
           | Mainly because it brings out the worst in people. It's easy
           | to read Blind too much and take on a very cynical, money-
           | driven view of everything in your life, which of course a
           | Blind addict would justify as clear-eyed and pragmatic.
        
           | runeblaze wrote:
           | It has obvious pros, but since you asked about the cons ---
           | anonymity brings the worst out of people; TC chasing leads to
           | a reductionist view of people's values and skills.
           | 
           | For example unlike HN you don't often do technical
           | discussions on blind, by design. So it is a "meta"-level
           | strategy discussion of the job, then it skews politics,
           | gossips, stock price etc..
           | 
           | This is compounded by it being social media, where negativity
           | can be amplified 5-10x.
        
           | yodsanklai wrote:
           | I looked at it once, seemed full of young men discussing hair
           | loss issues and how to get a girlfriend.
        
         | yodsanklai wrote:
         | What are they like? since you recommend not browsing this site?
        
       | tmaly wrote:
       | this open competition for talent is better than that time all the
       | big tech firms were working to actively suppress wages.
        
         | ramesh31 wrote:
         | We're talking about a few hundred people here, globally. The
         | entire goal is to suppress everyone else's wages to zero.
        
       | unit_circle wrote:
       | Side note: I'm noticing more and more of these simple, hyperbolic
       | headlines specifically of statements that public figures make. A
       | hallmark of the event being reported is a public figure making a
       | statement that will surely have little to no effect whatsoever.
       | 
       | Calling these statements "slamming" (a specific word I see with
       | curious frequency) is so riling to me because they are so
       | impotent but are described with such violent and decisive
       | language.
       | 
       | Often it's a politician, usually liberal, and their statement is
       | such an ineffectual waste of time, and outwardly it appears
       | wasting time is most of what they do. I consider myself slightly
       | left of center, so seeing "my group" dither and waste time rather
       | than organize and do real work frustrates me greatly. Especially
       | so since we are provided with such contrast from right of center
       | where there is so much decisive action happening at every moment.
       | 
       | I know it's to feed ranking algorithms, which causes me even more
       | irritation. Watching the brain rot get worse in real time...
        
       | Animats wrote:
       | Yeah, yeah, typical rich guy whining when labor makes some gains.
        
       | blackhaj7 wrote:
       | Couldn't think of a worse steward of AI than Meta/Zuck (not a fan
       | of OpenAI either). One of the most insidious companies out there.
       | 
       | Sad to see Nat Friedman go there. He struck me as "one of the
       | good ones" who was keen to use tech for positive change. I don't
       | think that is achievable at Meta
        
         | psunavy03 wrote:
         | But if they give you tens of millions of reasons to go there .
         | . .
        
         | garciasn wrote:
         | For Sam to seemingly claim that Meta is hiring mercenaries
         | while OpenAI is hiring missionaries seems a bit counter to
         | OpenAI's mission of having closed weight models vs an open
         | weights at Meta.
         | 
         | I could definitely see those who are 'missionaries' wanting to
         | give it away. -\\_(tsu)_/-
        
           | blackhaj7 wrote:
           | Agreed
        
       | mempko wrote:
       | Missionaries vs mercenaries? Which company is releasing open
       | source models? Please remind me I forgot.
        
       | cjoelrun wrote:
       | Isn't Meta's open model closer to OpenAI's mission then OpenAI.
        
         | DaSHacka wrote:
         | Ironically, Altman's statement wasnt all that wrong, in a
         | sense.
         | 
         | He just mixed up who the "Missionaries" and who the
         | "Mercenaries" were.
        
       | toofy wrote:
       | hilarious seeing that he views it this way when his company is so
       | very well known for taking (strong arguments say stealing)
       | everything from everyone.
       | 
       | i'm noticing more and more lately that our new monarchs really do
       | have broken thought patterns. they see their own abuse towards
       | others as perfectly ok but hilariously demand people treat them
       | fairly.
       | 
       | small children learn things that these guys struggle to
       | understand.
        
         | jddj wrote:
         | I think they understand that it's all performative
        
           | kypro wrote:
           | Sam comes across as an extremely calculating person to me.
           | I'm not suggesting he's necessarily doing this for bad
           | reasons, but it's very clear to me the public facing
           | communications he makes are well considered and likely not
           | fully reflective of his actual views and positions on things,
           | but instead what he believes to be power maximising.
           | 
           | He's very good at creating headlines and getting people
           | talking online. There's no doubt he's good at what he does,
           | but I don't know why anyone takes anything he says seriously.
        
         | FireBeyond wrote:
         | Even more blatantly and directly, "Don't you dare use our
         | model, trained on other people's work, to train yours".
        
       | jackallis wrote:
       | I don't know which pedastal Sam is standing on to point finger at
       | others? Who are the missionaries and who are the mercenaries?
       | What part of OpenAI is Open?
        
       | seatac76 wrote:
       | "First comes the Missionary, then comes the Mercenary, then comes
       | the Army"
       | 
       | Wonder if that applies here.
        
       | 0xbadcafebee wrote:
       | "Talent" doesn't make a business successful, and paychecks aren't
       | the reason most people switch jobs. This is like Sam announcing
       | to the world "it sucks working for our company, don't come here".
        
       | jrm4 wrote:
       | Big picture, I'll always believe we dodged a _huge_ bullet in
       | that  "AI" got big in a nearly fully "open-source," maybe even
       | "post open-source" world. The fact that _Meta_ is, for now, one
       | of the good guys in this space (purely strategically and
       | unintentionally) is fortunate and almost funny.
        
         | pydry wrote:
         | Dont make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Mark Zuckerberg. He
         | didnt open source anything because he's a "good guy", he's just
         | commoditizing the complement.
         | 
         | The "good guy" is a competitive environment that would render
         | Meta's AI offerings to be irrelevant right now if it didnt open
         | source.
        
           | landl0rd wrote:
           | The price tag on this stuff, in human capital, data, and
           | hardware, is high enough to preclude that sort of "perfect
           | competition" environment.
           | 
           | Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
        
           | Quarrelsome wrote:
           | they did say "accidentally". I find that people doing the
           | right thing for the wrong reasons is often the best case
           | outcome.
        
           | jrm4 wrote:
           | Oh, _absolutely_ -- I definitely meant that in the least
           | complimentary way possible :). In a way, it 's just the
           | triumph of the ideals of "open source," -- sharing is better
           | for everyone, even Zuck, selfishly.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | Most of Meta's models have not been released as open source.
         | Llama was a fluke, and it helps to commoditize your compliment
         | when you're not the market leader.
         | 
         | There is no good or open AI company of scale yet, and there may
         | never be.
         | 
         | A few that contribute to the commons are Deep Seek and Black
         | Forest Labs. But they don't have the same breadth and budget as
         | the hyperscalers.
        
           | phyrex wrote:
           | That's not true, the llama that's open source is pretty much
           | exactly what's used internally
        
         | casebash wrote:
         | Oh, they're actually the bad guys, just folks haven't thought
         | far enough ahead to realise it yet.
        
           | plemer wrote:
           | OK, lay it on us.
        
             | bn-l wrote:
             | It's not unreasonable given the mountain of evidence of
             | their past behaviour to just assume they are always the
             | "bad guy".
        
             | bbarnett wrote:
             | There's a documentary about what meta has planned:
             | 
             | https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-
             | fFgg&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5t...
        
               | tombert wrote:
               | Well at least they're doing it For Great Justice then.
        
         | add-sub-mul-div wrote:
         | Your ability to use a lesser version of this AI on your own
         | hardware will not save you from the myriad ways it will be used
         | to prey on you.
        
           | jayd16 wrote:
           | And an inability to do so would not have saved you either.
        
       | andsoitis wrote:
       | > OpenAI is the only answer for those looking to build artificial
       | general intelligence
       | 
       | Let's assume for a moment that OpenAI is the only company that
       | can build AGI (specious claim), then the question I would have
       | for Sam Altman: what is OpenAI's plan once that milestone is
       | reached, given his other argument:
       | 
       | > And maybe more importantly than that, we actually care about
       | building AGI in a good way," he added. "Other companies care more
       | about this as an instrumental goal to some other mission. But
       | this is our top thing, and always will be.
       | 
       | If building AGI is OpenAI's only goal (unlike other companies),
       | will OpenAI cease to exist once mission is accomplished or will a
       | new mission be devised?
        
         | darth_avocado wrote:
         | OpenAI's only goal isn't building AGI. It is to build it first
         | and make money off it.
        
           | a_bonobo wrote:
           | Exactly! The Microsoft-OpenAI agreement states that AGI is
           | whatever makes them 100 billion in profits. Nothing in there
           | about anything intelligence related.
           | 
           | >The two companies reportedly signed an agreement last year
           | stating OpenAI has only achieved AGI when it develops AI
           | systems that can generate at least $100 billion in profits.
           | 
           | https://techcrunch.com/2024/12/26/microsoft-and-openai-
           | have-...
        
           | zeryx wrote:
           | Is there even a point to money post AGI?
        
             | rchaud wrote:
             | Something tells me food and water supplies, weapons and
             | private security forces aren't going to be paid for in OAI
             | compute credits.
        
           | cma wrote:
           | The profit cap was supposed to be for first to acheive AGI
           | being end game, and would ensure redistribution (though with
           | apparently some kind of Altman tax through early World Coin
           | ownership stake). When they realized they wouldn't reach AGI
           | with current funding and they were so close to $100 billion
           | market cap they couldn't entice new investors on $100 billion
           | in profits, why didn't they set it to, say, $10 trillion
           | instead of infinity? Because they are missionaries?
           | 
           | A leaked email from Ilya early on even said they never
           | planned to open source stuff long term, it was just to entice
           | researchers at the beginning.
           | 
           | Whole company is founded on lies and Altman was even fired
           | from YC over self detailing or something in I think a deleted
           | YC blog post if I remember right.
        
         | blueblisters wrote:
         | Nope AGI is not the end goal - https://blog.samaltman.com/the-
         | gentle-singularity
         | 
         | > OpenAI is a lot of things now, but before anything else, we
         | are a superintelligence research company.
         | 
         | IMO, AGI is already a very nebulous term. Superintelligence
         | seems even more hand-wavy. It might be useful to define and
         | understand limits of "intelligence" first.
        
       | elzbardico wrote:
       | Said the guy whose life mission seems to be to convert a non-
       | profit into a for-profit entity.
        
         | trhway wrote:
         | look around - CA - missionaries have the best real estate. And
         | another related note on connection between strong promotion of
         | devotion to ideas and it is being a good business - the
         | Abrahamic monotheism was a result of the successful marketing
         | campaign "only the donations made here are donations to the
         | real god" of that Temple back then against several other
         | competing ones. (Curiously that the current historic stage of
         | AI, on the cusp, be it 3 or 30 years, of emergence of AGI is
         | somewhat close to that point in history back then. Thus in
         | particular a flood of messiahs and doom sayers would only
         | increase.)
        
           | timewizard wrote:
           | In short: "Liars prosper in the short term."
        
             | trhway wrote:
             | They can prosper longer than you can stay liquid or even
             | alive :)
        
               | timewizard wrote:
               | That depends on the regulatory environment and the degree
               | of market monopolization.
        
           | Quarrelsome wrote:
           | > the Abrahamic monotheism was a result of the successful
           | marketing campaign
           | 
           | I thought it was because everyone was accepted, technically
           | equal, and sins were seen as something inherent and
           | forgivable (at least with Christianity) whereas paganism and
           | polythiesms can tend towards rewarding those with greater
           | resources (who can afford to sacrifice an entire bull every
           | religious cycle), thereby creating a form of religious
           | inequality. At least that was one of the somewhat compelling
           | arguments I heard that described the spread of Christianity
           | throughout the Roman Empire.
        
       | apwell23 wrote:
       | Another said: "Yes we're quirky and weird, but that's what makes
       | this place a magical cradle of innovation," wrote one. "OpenAI is
       | weird in the most magical way. We contain multitudes."
       | 
       | i thought i was reading /r/linkedinlunatics
        
       | seydor wrote:
       | This is a bad year to talk about missions and ideologies. Just
       | take the money and run
        
       | amarcheschi wrote:
       | Had he been doing the poaching, he would be saying mercenaries
       | will beat missionaries. Why believe in ceos words at this point
        
       | pier25 wrote:
       | So he believes OpenAI is in some kind of moral or humanitarian
       | mission? Is he lying or just delusional?
        
       | jrflowers wrote:
       | Hmm on the one hand somebody could have unimaginable wealth but
       | on the other hand they could be in a religion started by a former
       | reddit ceo, it is truly an unsolvable riddle
        
       | jlebar wrote:
       | I think that leaks like this have negative information value to
       | the public.
       | 
       | I work at OAI, but I'm speaking for myself here. Sam talks to the
       | company, sometimes via slack, more often in company-wide
       | meetings, all the time. Way more than any other CEO I have worked
       | for. This leaked message is one part of a long, continuing
       | conversation within the company.
       | 
       | The vast majority of what he and others say doesn't get leaked.
       | So you're eavesdropping on a tiny portion of a conversation. It's
       | impossible _not_ to take it out of context.
       | 
       | What's worse, you _think_ you learned something from reading this
       | article, even though you probably didn 't, making you more
       | confident in your conclusions when you should be less confident.
       | 
       | I hope everyone here gets to have the experience of seeing HN
       | discuss something that you're an expert in. It's eye-opening to
       | see how confidently wrong most poasters are. It certainly has
       | humbled my own reactions to news. (In this particular instance I
       | don't think there's so much right and wrong but more that I think
       | if you had actually been in the room for more of the conversation
       | you'd probably feel different.)
       | 
       | Btw Sam has tweeted about an open source model. Stay tuned...
       | https://x.com/sama/status/1932573231199707168
        
         | gphil wrote:
         | > I hope everyone here gets to have the experience of seeing HN
         | discuss something that you're an expert in. It's eye-opening to
         | see how confidently wrong most poasters are.
         | 
         | This is so true. And not confined to HN.
        
         | gist wrote:
         | > I think that leaks like this have negative information value
         | to the public.
         | 
         | To most people I'd think this is mainly for entertainment
         | purposes ie 'palace intrique' and the actual facts don't even
         | matter.
         | 
         | > The vast majority of what he and others say doesn't get
         | leaked. So you're eavesdropping on a tiny portion of a
         | conversation. It's impossible not to take it out of context.
         | 
         | That's a good spin but coming from someone who has an anonymous
         | profile how do we know it's true (this is a general thing on HN
         | people say things but you don't know how legit what they say is
         | or if they are who they say they are).
         | 
         | > What's worse, you think you learned something from reading
         | this article, even though you probably didn't, making you more
         | confident in your conclusions when you should be less
         | confident.
         | 
         | What conclusions exactly? Again do most people really care
         | about this (reading the story) and does it impact them? My
         | guess is it doesn't at all.
         | 
         | > I hope everyone here gets to have the experience of seeing HN
         | discuss something that you're an expert in.
         | 
         | This is a well known trope and is discussed in other forms ie
         | 'NY Times story is wrong move to the next story and you believe
         | it' ie: https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
        
           | jlebar wrote:
           | > coming from someone who has an anonymous profile how do we
           | know it's true
           | 
           | My profile is trivially connected to my real identity, I am
           | not anonymous here.
        
           | lossolo wrote:
           | > That's a good spin but coming from someone who has an
           | anonymous profile how do we know it's true (this is a general
           | thing on HN people say things but you don't know how legit
           | what they say is or if they are who they say they are).
           | 
           | Not only that, but how can we know if his interpretation or
           | "feelings" about these discussions are accurate? How do we
           | know he isn't looking through rose-tinted glasses like the
           | Neumann believers at WeWork? OP isn't showing the missing
           | discussion, only his interpretation/feelings about it. How
           | can we know if his view of reality is accurate and unbiased?
           | Without seeing the full discussion and judging for ourselves,
           | we can't.
        
         | aleph_minus_one wrote:
         | > I hope everyone here gets to have the experience of seeing HN
         | discuss something that you're an expert in. It's eye-opening to
         | see how confidently wrong most poasters are.
         | 
         | Some topics (and some areas where one could be an expert in)
         | are much more prone to this phenomenon than others.
         | 
         | Just to give a specific example that suddenly comes to my mind:
         | Grothendieck-style Algebraic Geometry is rather not prone to
         | people confidently posting wrong stuff about on HN.
         | 
         | Generally (to abstract from this example [pun intended]): I
         | guess topics that
         | 
         | - take an enormous amount of time to learn,
         | 
         | - where "confidently bullshitting" will not work because you
         | have to learn some "language" of the topic very deeply
         | 
         | - where even a person with some intermediate knowledge of the
         | topic can immediately detect whether you use the "'grammar' of
         | the 'technical language'" very wrongly
         | 
         | are much more rarely prone to this phenomenon. It is no
         | coincidence that in the last two points I make comparisons to
         | (natural) languages: it is not easy to bullshit _in a live
         | interview_ that you know some natural language well if the
         | counterpart has at least some basic knowledge of this natural
         | language.
        
           | joules77 wrote:
           | I think its more the site's architecture that promotes this
           | behavior.
           | 
           | In the offline world there is a big social cost to this kind
           | of behavior. Platforms haven't been able to replicate it.
           | Instead they seem to promote and validate it. It feeds the
           | self esteem of these people.
        
           | Karrot_Kream wrote:
           | It's hard to have an informed opinion on Algebraic Geometry
           | (requires expertise) and not many people are going to upvote
           | and engage with you about it either. It's a lot easier to
           | have an opinion on tech execs, current events, and tech
           | gossip. Moreover you're much more likely to get replies,
           | upvotes, and other engagement for posting about it.
           | 
           | There's a reason politics and tech gossip are where most HN
           | comments go these days. This is a pretty mainstream site.
        
         | crystal_revenge wrote:
         | This is a strangely defensive comment for a post that, at least
         | on the surface, doesn't seem to say anything particularly
         | damning. The fact that you're rushing to defend your CEO sort
         | of proves the point being made, clearly you have to make people
         | believe they're a part of something bigger, not just pay them a
         | lot.
         | 
         | The only obvious critique is that _clearly Sam Altman doesn 't
         | believe this himself_. He is legendarily mercenary and self
         | serving in his actions to the point where, at least for me,
         | it's impressive. He also has, demonstrably here, created a
         | culture where his employees _do_ believe they are part of a
         | more important mission and that clearly is different than just
         | paying them a lot (which of course, he _also_ does).
         | 
         | I do think some skepticism should be had around that view the
         | employees have, but I also suspect that was the case for
         | _actual missionaries_ (who of course always served someone else
         | 's interests, even if they personally thought they were doing
         | divine work).
        
           | wat10000 wrote:
           | The headline makes it sound like he's angry that Meta is
           | poaching his talent. That's a bad look that makes it seem
           | like you consider your employees to be your property. But he
           | didn't actually say anything like that. I wouldn't consider
           | any of what he said to be "slams," just pretty reasonable
           | discussion of why he thinks they won't do well.
           | 
           | I'd say this is yet another example of bad headlines having
           | negative information content, not leaks.
        
             | makeitdouble wrote:
             | With no dogs in the fight, the very fact he's talking to
             | his employees about a competitor's hiring practices is
             | noteworthy.
             | 
             | The delivery of the message can be milder and better than
             | how it sounds in the chosen bits, but the overall picture
             | kinda stays the same.
        
         | makeitdouble wrote:
         | The other side of it: some statements made internally can be
         | really bad but employees brush over them because they
         | inherently trust the speaker to some degree, they have
         | additional material that better aligns with what they want to
         | hear so they latch on the rest, and current leaders' actions
         | look fine enough to them so they see the bad parts as just
         | communication mishaps.
         | 
         | Until the tide turns.
        
           | jiggawatts wrote:
           | Worse: employees are often actively deceived by management.
           | Their "close relationship" is akin to that of a farmer and
           | his herd. Convinced they're "on the inside" they're often
           | blind to the truth that's obvious from the outside.
           | 
           | Or simply they don't see the whole picture because they're
           | not customers or business partners.
           | 
           | I've seen Oracle employees befuddled to hear negative
           | opinions about their beloved workplace! _"I never had to deal
           | with the licensing department!"_
        
         | dylan604 wrote:
         | Your comment comes across dangerously close to sounding like
         | someone that has drunk the kool-aid and defends the
         | indefensible.
         | 
         | Yes, you can get the wrong impression from hearing just a
         | snippet of a conversation, but sometimes you can hear what was
         | needed whether it was out of context or not. Sam is not a great
         | human being to be placed on a pedestal that never needs
         | anything he says questioned. He's just a SV CEO trying to keep
         | people thinking his company is the coolest thing. Once you stop
         | questioning everything, you're in danger of having the kool-aid
         | take over. How many times have we seen other SV CEOs with a
         | "stay tuned" tweet that they just hope nobody questions later?
         | 
         | >if you had actually been in the room for more of the
         | conversation you'd probably feel different
         | 
         | If you haven't drunk the kool-aid, you might feel differently
         | as well.
         | 
         | SAMA doesn't need your assistance white knighting him on the
         | interwebs.
        
         | diggan wrote:
         | > Btw Sam has tweeted about an open source model. Stay tuned...
         | https://x.com/sama/status/1932573231199707168
         | 
         | Sneaky wording but seems like no, Sam only talked about "open
         | weights" model so far, so most likely not "open source" by any
         | existing definition of the word, but rather a custom "open-but-
         | legal-dept-makes-us-call-it-proprietary" license. Slightly
         | ironic given the whole "most HN posters are confidently wrong"
         | part right before ;)
         | 
         | Although I do agree with you overall, many stories are
         | sensationalized, parts-of-stories always lack a lot of context
         | and large parts of HN users comments about stuff they maybe
         | don't actually know so much about, but put in a way to make it
         | seem so.
        
           | echelon wrote:
           | There are ten measures by which a model can/should be open:
           | 
           | 1. The model code (pytorch, whatever)
           | 
           | 2. The pre-training code
           | 
           | 3. The fine-tuning code
           | 
           | 4. The inference code
           | 
           | 5. The raw training data (pre-training + fine-tuning)
           | 
           | 6. The processed training data (which might vary across
           | various stages of pre-training and fine-tuning)
           | 
           | 7. The resultant weights blob
           | 
           | 8. The inference inputs and outputs (which also need a
           | license; see also usage limits like O-RAIL)
           | 
           | 9. The research paper(s) (hopefully the model is also
           | described in literature!)
           | 
           | 10. The patents (or lack thereof)
           | 
           | A good open model will have nearly all of these made
           | available. A fake "open" model might only give you two of
           | ten.
        
           | impossiblefork wrote:
           | Open weights is unobjectionable. You do get a lot.
           | 
           | It's nice to also know what the training data is, and it's
           | even nicer to be aware of how it's fine-tuned etc., but at
           | least you get the architecture and are able to run it as you
           | like and fine tune it further as you like.
        
         | tikhonj wrote:
         | Okay, but I've also heard insiders at companies I've worked
         | completely overlook obvious problems and cultural/management
         | shortcomings issues. "Oh, we don't have a low-trust
         | environment, it's just growing pains. Don't worry about what
         | the CEO just said..."
         | 
         | Like, seriously, I've seen first-hand how comments like this
         | can be _more_ revealing out of context than in context, because
         | the context is all internal politics and spin.
        
         | threetonesun wrote:
         | Little Miyazaki knock offs posting on the Nazi Hellsite former
         | known as Twitter isn't really helping how the "public" feels
         | about OAI either.
        
         | phatfish wrote:
         | I agree with the sentiment.
         | 
         | Having been behind the scenes of HN discussion about a security
         | incident, with accusations flying about incompetent developers,
         | the true story was the lead developers new of the issue, but it
         | was not prioritised by management and pushed down the backlog
         | in place of new (revenue generating) features.
         | 
         | There is plenty of nuance to any situation that can't be known.
         | 
         | No idea if the real story here is better or worse than the
         | public speculation though.
        
         | bboygravity wrote:
         | I totally agree that most articles (pretty much all
         | news/infotainment) is devoid of any information.
         | 
         | At the same time all I need to know about Sam is in the
         | company/"non-profit's" name, which is in itself is now simply a
         | lie.
        
       | beoberha wrote:
       | I understand the massive anti-OpenAI sentiment here, but OpenAI
       | makes a really great product. ChatGPT and its ecosystem are
       | widely used by millions every day to make them more productive.
       | Losing these employees doesn't bode well for users.
       | 
       | Meta doesn't really have a product unless you count the awful
       | "Meta AI" that is baked into their apps. Unless these
       | acquisitions manifest in frontier models getting open sourced, it
       | feels like a gigantic brain drain.
        
         | jstummbillig wrote:
         | Meta's real AI product is actually even worse than that and
         | insidious: They try to run over companies who are (in contrast)
         | successfully advancing AI with money they made by hooking teens
         | on IG, and then just use the resulting inferior product as a
         | marketing tool.
        
       | gist wrote:
       | In any case this is business and in many cases how business
       | operates. Nice try on Sam's part to try and make it like it's a
       | bad thing and everybody is for the good of the purpose.
        
       | paxys wrote:
       | Pretty telling that OpenAI only now feels like it has to
       | reevaluate compensation for researchers while just weeks ago it
       | spent $6.5 _billion_ to hire Jony Ive. Maybe he can build your
       | superintelligence for you.
        
         | ALLTaken wrote:
         | That's absolutely incredible. Can you please point us to the
         | article where he got hired for that huge amount?
         | 
         | I would love to learn everything about this! How to even
         | achieve 1000th of what he accomplished here with OpenAI would
         | be incredible!
         | 
         | I think this deserves lessons in universities, textbooks and
         | economy. Gaming yourself up this high, I can't even fathom $6.5
         | billion US-Dollars... what a LEGENDARY Carreer-Move!
        
           | SequoiaHope wrote:
           | https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ive+openai
        
       | lizknope wrote:
       | > hinting that the company is evaluating compensation for the
       | entire research organization.
       | 
       | TL ; DR
       | 
       | Some other company paid more and got engineers to join them
       | because the engineers care more about themselves and their
       | families than some annoying guy's vision.
        
       | sashank_1509 wrote:
       | Do we know what numbers we are talking about here. I've heard
       | 
       | 1. "So much money your grandchildren don't need to work"
       | 
       | 2. 100M
       | 
       | 3. Not 100M
       | 
       | So what is it? I'm just curious, I find 100M hard to believe but
       | Zuck is capable of spending a lot.
        
       | fossuser wrote:
       | I hope xAI wins. I think Sam's self-portrayal as a missionary has
       | a lot of irony - I see him as the ultimate mercenary.
       | 
       | It's always challenging to judge based entirely on public
       | perceptions, but at some point public evidence adds up. The board
       | firing, getting maybe fired from YC (disputed), people leaving to
       | start anthropic because of him, people stating they don't want
       | him in charge of AGI. All the other execs leaving. His lying in
       | congress, his lying to the board, his general affect just seems
       | off - not in an aspie way, but in some dishonest way. Yeah it's
       | subjective, but it's a point and it's different from Zuckerberg,
       | Musk etc. who come across as earnest. Even PG said if dropped on
       | an island of cannibals you'd come back and Sam would be king.
       | 
       | I'm rooting for basically any of the other (American) players in
       | the game to win.
       | 
       | At least Zuck is paying something close to the value these people
       | might generate instead of having them sign hostile agreements to
       | claw back their equity and then feigning ignorance. If NBA all
       | stars get 100M$+ contracts, it's not crazy for a John Carmack
       | type to command the same or more - the hard part is being able to
       | identify the talent, not justify the value created by the
       | leverage of the correct talent (which is huge).
        
       | lordfrito wrote:
       | Sam Altman complaining about mercenary behavior from
       | competitors... Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. Guess
       | he's unhappy he's not the one being mercenary in this situation.
        
       | logsr wrote:
       | https://www.youtube.com/shorts/WrTKZKG7Ahc -- I would probably
       | take Ari Emanuel's word on this one
        
       | alganet wrote:
       | Why does this feel like the "Friendship Ended With Musadir" meme?
       | 
       | https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/friendship-ended-with-mudasir
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2025-07-01 23:01 UTC)