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Comment by ctvo | Hacker News Reader

This piece is just outrageous. Sam Altman, who is incredibly handsome, wealthy, and generous, did not take any equity in OpenAI. He's basically doing this work out of the goodness of his heart folks. Very similar to SBF, who also received many fluff pieces from the media, who was only making money from his crypto exchange so he could use it to change the world -- all from the goodness of their hearts. Until we find out it's not.

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Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.

Spoiler tag on that last sentence please.

Which last sentence: 'Altman won’t make any money on his new startup, but he’s earned himself a place in history.'

and/or

'Until we find out it's not.'

The last last sentence?

How is this comparable? SBF did own equity in FTX+Alameda. Altman doesn't. That removes the monetary incentives. It is not everything but it is a big deal.

SBF was going to benefit from FTX running a ponzi and not being caught and being rich.

Altman will not benefit monetarily if OpenAI becomes incredibly valuable. Decoupling the monetary incentives is a very good thing here.

It's naive to think not having equity (if it's even true?) means there's no monetary incentive, which you then build the rest of your reply on.

There might be some incentive still. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing story. The fact that he has 0 equity by itself makes the SBF comparison ridiculous (which is what the parent poster was connecting to). It is clear there is not the same level of monetary incentive.

>Decoupling the monetary incentives is a very good thing here.

Didn't seem to help.

> Didn't seem to help.

With what?

Leading OpenAI in an altruistic direction rather than a profit-seeking one.

I don't think a non-profit OpenAI would ever have had enough resources to be anything but another also ran AI startup.

I'm all for being cynical and jaded, but what do you suppose his secret evil plan is in this case?

I've not seen Game of Thrones, but I am aware of a meme about Daenerys Targaryen surprising viewers by doing in the finale exactly and specifically what she said she was going to do throughout the show.

So anyway, Sam Altman is working on creating and aligning this super-duper artificial intelligence that, if it works out, makes all of human labour and economic value to date pale in comparison.

It's amazing how that is still a difficult concept for people here in 2023.

It's not necessarily evil. It's probably just to make a shit ton of money. Plenty of ways to do that without directly taking equity in OpenAI.

You don't get to his level of wealth without having an innate desire for more of money. Everything always comes back to that.

Hypothetically, if he doesn't end up making as much money as he would have if he'd taken equity, does that mean his secret plan failed, or that he's got an even more secret plan going on in the background?

Or he didn't realize it would take off the way it did and made a mistake. Now he's getting fluff pieces written to at least try and make the best of the mistake.

I don't believe for a second that he essentially donated billions of dollars in equity on purpose.

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