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Comment by mytydev | Hacker News Reader

This article seems to be coming from a perspective that Microsoft somehow poached Sam and team. After looking at the events of the weekend, it's clear to me that the OpenAI board is solely responsible for the events that conspired. I imagine the timeline of events will be studied in the future as an example of how not to fire your CEO.

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It's more like Microsoft set themselves up to have outsized control over OAI long before this weekend.

Yeah, and a plausible explanation for everything is that the board realized that they were beholden to MS, and this was a last ditch effort to claw back some power before they were de facto just the MS AI division.

Maybe the board thought they could get some concessions from Altman/MS by playing hardball, and it just backfired on them. Or maybe they already knew that it was too late, and that by antagonizing MS and imploding OpenAI they might shake "something" unexpected loose to their own benefit.

Microsoft gave Sam and the for-profit arm of OpenAI a paved road towards a much larger GPU supply and access to other resources, much quicker than OpenAI could procure naturally. This allows the for-profit arm of OpenAI to grow much faster, albeit with more directional influence from an external entity that does not have a position on the board. Microsoft's investment, significantly motivated by business interests, rather than philanthropy, creates tension in OpenAI. The for-profit arm is being tugged in two directions, one that wants to capitalize and recoup investments at the cost of less risk assessment of the impact of AI, and the other direction that wants a slower, more guided approach towards building an approach to AI more focused on ethics, sustainability and improving the human condition.

The fact that Microsoft might not have directly recruited Sam and his team is less significant in light of their promise of substantial growth, which ultimately swayed Sam's decision, whether he consciously realizes this or not. This now leads to him misrepresenting information to the board, leading to his removal. This scenario humorously mirrors a common personal dilemma: choosing between financial gain and leading a meaningful, sustainable life. Sam's choice is hyperbolically likened to 'selling one's soul to the devil', reflecting this paradox.

>it's clear to me that the OpenAI board is solely responsible for the events that conspired.

Based on what?

> I imagine the timeline of events will be studied in the future as an example of how not to fire your CEO.

Studied by who? It is the board of a non-profit company that doesn't have "maximize shareholders profits" as reason to exist. This will be studied as one more capitalist takeover. I hope it somehow goes bad for Microsoft.

There is a possibility, however remote, that Sam and MS orchestrated the whole thing.

There is also a possibility, however remote, that Aliens are involved somehow.

But until we have evidence for any of these remote theories, I’d argue they’re all equally uninteresting.

But we never saw Alien interference but saw MS's Nokia takeover.

Everyone that keeps repeating this should read the Finn newspapers of the time, regarding how Nokia board decided to get Elop, and then give him a contract with a bonus clause in case he managed to sell Nokia Mobile business unit.

Ex-Nokian here.

Got a link?

It's hard to search foreign press.

Here from the Forbes,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/terokuittinen/2013/09/24/nokia-...

"According to changes implemented in 2010, Elop was entitled to immediate share price performance bonus in case of a "change of control" situation"

And then a couple of related articles,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanlappin/2013/09/25/anger-at-...

"Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop is catching heat today in Finland after the country’s biggest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, reported that Elop was guaranteed a $25 million payment if he was able to sell Nokia’s cellphone business."

https://venturebeat.com/mobile/finns-are-in-an-uproar-over-e...

>This adjustment meant that unlike previous CEOs, Elop was facing an instant, massive windfall should the following sequence happen to take place:

- Nokia's share price drops steeply as the company drifts close to cash flow crisis under Elop.

- Elop sells the company's handset unit to Microsoft under pressure to raise cash

- The share price rebounds sharply, though remains far below where it was when Elop joined the company.

Sorry but that sounds more like clever negotation from Elops's side and like a naive blindsided board.

The contract was signed before he joined, and that sale clause did not materialise after the fact.

Which one, Elon or Zuck?

Whatever they did, MS is not an environment where ideas thrive or execution sparkles.

They've always been mediocre and probably always will, I can't see any particular purchase, or poach, changing that.

But they do have heaps of money. It's not clear that will be enough.

> Whatever they did, MS is not an environment where ideas thrive or execution sparkles. They've always been mediocre and probably always will

Worse, they're increasingly user-hostile. Any tech in their hands can't be trusted to respect users.

Looking forward to ChatGPT exploiting my machine to install Candy Crush every 2 months...

Increasingly big tech sees users as prey rather than customers.

Google seems ambivalent in this respect, but there is no question where MS's heart lies.

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