Microsoft: We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft: We remain committed to our partnership with OpenAI

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73 pointsupwardbound42 comments

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...until we have developed our own internal foundation model on par with GPT-4.

Satya's todo list:

1. Hire Altman and co to prevent share price bloodbath (and reach new heights)

2. Gradually strangle OpenAI's access to compute resources to ensure their failure

3. Prevent competitors saving OpenAI due to continued large minority ownership

4. $$$

I name this an acquassination.

It's a master stroke and incredible good luck for MSFT. It'll pay for itself in share valuation increase and save them from actually buying OpenAI (not that they could have due to the non-profit, but they would have ages ago if possible).

Absolutely insane turnaround from the POV of the share price. MSFT went from dropping 1.5% on the news right before close Friday to a new all time high before the market opened Monday. Turning "MSFT's most promising investment is in serious turmoil" in to a positive news story before the market opened is crazy. Would love to be working a tech stock desk right now to know what it's like.

> Would love to be working a tech stock desk right now to know what it's like.

dropping 1.5% - those are rookie numbers in this racket.

They don't need cloud as latency is not an issue for research. They could pursue compute in Europe who may have better laws regarding privacy anyway. MSFT is a fat man trying to sit on the little man but the little man is more nimble.

> And we’re extremely excited to share the news that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, together with colleagues, will be joining Microsoft to lead a new advanced AI research team.

This seems like the real bit of news here

Odd to choose VC/finance types to lead a research team

Satya hires and is going to invest further into the people who, instead of delivering as promised, brought him this mess. It all looks like a panic scrambling on the part of Satya and Altman. Like as if the whole deal was hinging on Altman - such risky deal would be a mistake on part of Satya, the mistake that it looks to me he is scrambling to cover.

Wouldn't the people that 'brought him this mess' be the people at OpenAI still? Not the people jumping ship.

Sam has a lot of researchers wanting to jump ship. there was a thread on Twitter where employees would heart one of Sam's tweets as a signal they would jump ship with him towards his next adventure.

A lot of OAI folk sent the signal.

They probably care more about the people they may bring with them.

I think the most aggressive part of this is the "together with colleagues" sub sentence. He is basically openly poaching the employees of a company that he supposedly has a very close cooperation with. This situation seems especially difficult since Microsoft basically houses all of openai's infrastructure. How can they continue a trust-based relationship like this?

Regarding the trust-based relationship... OpenAI burned that bridge and Microsoft was made aware of the very real threat that OpenAI is not in line with them, they'll try to get out as fast as humanly possible.

If the claim that Sam Altman wasn't consistently [over long period of time] "candid" with the board, e.g. they're saying he's been lying to them - is it OpenAI that burned that bridge who has a responsibility to act on real information, or Sam Altman that is in fact the responsible party - even if he ends up "winning" out in the consequences?

12 Months Hence

https://imgur.com/a/ZjehzHY

" We look forward to getting to know Emmett Shear "

Hmm

The corporate equivalent of "Who the f** is that guy?"

I was interpreting it more along the lines of 'we have absolutely no common ground, shared values or pre-existing relationships with that guy' myself...

Indeed, but corporate speak is a lote more warmer usually. They at least know his resume, have talked a bit, and then they sugar coat everything.

I don't think he meant anything as mean-spirited as that. I think it's more of just "I don't know this guy at all", or more succinctly "who the f is this guy" as the GP comment put it haha.

[Edit: oops, I dumb. Codethief correctly pointed out that I made a mistake - I probably would have failed any class about intro to set theory.. Derp.]

> they don't have any mutual connections with each other.

> (I deduced this because the list of mutual connections I have with Satya, and the list of mutual connections I have with Emmett, are disjoint.)

Maybe I'm missing something here but I don't see how one thing follows from the other. They could have a mutual connection that you're not connected to, couldn't they?

That is not a sound deduction.

Sounds like a cold greeting in contrast to the announcement of Sam & co joining.

He will be Sheared very soon.

Emmett Shear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Shear

---

Emmett Shear (born 1983) is the interim CEO of the artificial intelligence company OpenAI, having been named by the board on November 19, 2023 following the ousting of former CEO Sam Altman two days earlier.[1]

Previously, Shear was the chief executive officer of Twitch, a position he served in until March 2023 since it was originally founded as a live video platform Justin.tv. Shear served as a part-time partner at venture capital firm Y Combinator.[2][3]

---

Wikipedia sure is fast. "Currently, the next guy to run the drama factory. Previously, much lesser known positions, such as the CEO of Twitch and a guy at some thing called Y Combinator."

Translation: I yet know or recognize the CEO.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38344196

This thread is a Duplicate of parent.

Is it just me or it's the sixth times today that the same tweet is referenced as an hn news?

same topic different tweets

Nah same tweet different topics

Translation: OAI is toast

Toast tastes amazing

Extinguish phase about to start.

"together with colleagues" is an invitation to quit and join MS

Or OpenAI is going to eventually get extinguished by Microsoft, once the employees who's shares are now worth 90% less than they did in the last week.

People were claming Facebook was dead a few months ago. We'll see.

If Ai had not magically appeared they would be dead - the most commonly posted articles on HN would be about how the 12th round of layoffs at big tech had reduced headcount to 30% of its peak.

Big tech employees are recieving paycheques on the back of the Ai mirage.

I don't think so, they have billions of users, it was doing to "die".

On the other hand, AI did come along, and the zuck had invested in a team of strong AI researchers, so he had a strategy and it paid off? Go figure?

Reality is they're still in the lead with the most widely used product. Sucks to lose a lot of their talent, but I wouldn't entirely count them out. Sure is great news for Anthropic and other competitors though.

Microsoft has a long tradition of stifling competition. They can't really do it out in the open anymore, so the acquihire method seems brilliant - certainly cheaper than litigation or fighting things out in the court of public opinion (lets be real, who actually cares outside of the niche tech/biz community).

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