If needed, you have a role at Microsoft that matches your compensation
twitter.com
twitter.com
But I'm just thinking of the rancor that has been heaped on Terraform, for example, for changing its license. The argument always seems to be that Hashicorp mislead contributors by claiming to release their contributions as open source and now they've reneged on that deal.
My understanding of OpenAI's mission was that there was a fear that AI being developed inside of big tech companies would provide undue advantage to the very few companies that were able to afford the teams and hardware necessary. Meanwhile the rest of us would be unaware of those advancement being made behind closed doors while those behemoths created an insurmountable gap.
Yet now, for some reason, everyone is literally cheerleading the gutting of OpenAI and gleefully pushing the employees into one of the biggest and most notorious tech giants there ever was.
You almost have to wonder, is this the greatest psychological twist in recent memory? People aren't just OK with them turning into a profit-seeking venture, they are seemingly begging for it. There is almost no opposition to it. And for what? Because of some guy none of us actually knows, who we've only seen on TV? And big tech guys like Paul Graham, Eric Schmidt, Satya Nadella - a literal who's-who of the tech giant oligarchy - are all fawning over this young man, along with visits to the white house, meeting foreign presidents, etc.
We went from "big corps are bad" to "big corps are saviours" in less than a week. And I'm not even sure what we think they are saving us from.
Moving to MSFT merely means they’ll do the same thing, but with a bit more reliability, a bit more fear of liability, and a bit less of the doomerist sanctimony of the original leadership. Better to at least have a bigco with coherent and stable values like money. The bigco “nonprofit” led by the current board has made erratic decisions, has insane longtermist and EA values, and refused to give any meaningful statement about why they did what they did. Inasmuch as they resist commercialization, it’s to have more opacity and more control not less. How can we trust these people with control over AGI? Better to junk the board and deal with straightforward greed rather than hubris.
So all the bad that you criticize OpenAI for would leave to MS, and yet people are still cheering for it.
I am truly baffled.
These people have absolutely no interest in decentralization and accountability, and were more than happy to let OpenAI accumulate power to “protect humanity”—until they pulled the plug for reasons they still refuse to disclose. Let me be clear: this is unacceptable. Not coincidentally, their so-called utilitarianism and altruism merely justifies accumulating all power in their hands, and taking any action (like the backstabbing we saw last week) to make it happen. For all MSFT’s faults, they play by traditional and predictable corporate rules of greed and can be reasoned with. The safety faction are true believers and implacably opposed to openness anywhere, and moreover happily gave the veneer of altruism to the regulatory capture of the commercial faction anyway before they realized they couldn’t control it. I know which one I’d pick.
What Hogwarts house is he?
https://www.404media.co/new-openai-ceo-emmett-shear-was-mino...
Moving to MSFT means they cannot do anything that goes against MSFT's interests.
Everything they ever did, they ever will do belongs to MSFT.
MSFT brings with it all the bloat and risk aversion it needs as a big org, killing the "cutting egde" move-fast, make-it-work nature of OAI that got it to this point in the first place.
Only thing you can be sure of is this thing will now be "closed" forever, with no hope of others benefiting off the hard work of the real people who make it happen.
Last week he said, "I believe that this will be the most important and beneficial technology humanity has yet invented. And I also believe that if we’re not careful about it, it can be quite disastrous. And so we have to navigate it carefully."
If you run to Microsoft with the entire team, whose entire mission is an amorphous "stock price go up" (I mean, look at how much people are talking about them figuring out a story before stock market opens on Monday), then you have failed OpenAI's charter and founding purpose.
The things I stand for now would not have held in the face of millions in comp 10 years ago, so I don't expect the same of others. I only hope they earn whatever it takes to get them to the next level sooner than later. AI does appear to be worth a good fight for humanity.
People are more loyal to their networks than their principles.
Switching from ‘must do good’ to ‘good is impossible, make as much money as possible’ can happen really quick.
The 80’s Era of ‘greed is good’ followed free love and the hippies pretty closely for a reason, IMO.
I guess the old saying: "If you can't beat them, join them" is the new mantra. And I suppose if you're going to do it, might as well do it with some enthusiasm.
However there are many other sentiments held reasonably by various subgroups, like, “this board overstepped and hasn’t explained itself to our satisfaction” or “we love our boss, he makes us wealthy,” or “if they take my chatGPT away, I’ll be pissed” or “man , I just invested $13B into this ridiculously governed venture and if I don’t fix this my wealth will never approach Balmer’s”
They should take SkyDrive, remove the Drive part and add all new cool AI made with .NET technology; so that's how we get Skynet /s
e: for what it's worth I thought it was a reasonable discussion point, not sure why you got downvoted on that one :(
Similar things are done when doing anonymous 360 surveys in the workplace. If not enough people in a certain pool respond, the feedback doesn't get shared.
Also I have enough savings and my skills are in demand enough that I wouldn’t consider signing such a letter much of a risk. The researchers at openAI are likely a good deal more in demand than I am.
this only signals desire to leave openai. nothing else.
>We , the undersigned, may choose to resign from OpenAI 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.
It does suggest more than their willingness to leave.
[1] Just to clarify, I don't know Sam and I am taking the usual labor viewpoint that most CEOs, in order to become CEOs, had to be a certain sort of asshole who would be likely to do other such asshole things. There are some indications that this sort of assholery is what he was fired for but it's kinda hard to read between the lines here.
The downvotes here are pretty irrational. But that's the defining feature of class warfare: we're all closer to homelessness than a billion dollars, but we've been conditioned to believe the opposite.
Make no mistake, if Microsoft is matching $10M PPU's with $10M Microsoft RSUs vesting over 4 years, every single employee will join. But I kind of doubt that this is their plan
That doesn't tell you whether it was the numerator or the denominator that changed.
I think that is approximately L70 comp.
People in stagnant careers signal to their employers that they don't need to do anything at all to retain them.
People at a hot startup have all the options in the world.
Compensation isn't about what's fair at all. It's supply and demand.
You want to make more money? Make yourself in shorter supply and generate more demand for your service.
One reason is that retaliation is very possible. The opacity of the executive team was not a feature of Steve Jobs’s Apple, but the Time Cook-era opaqueness combines poorly withthe silo’d, top down nature of Apple’s management which _was_ inherited from Steve Jobs.
The opaqueness, I think, is a result of Tim Cook integrating the retail and corporate sides of the company; retail salespeople are treated better, but software engineers are treated a little more like retail salespeople.
Since the pandemic, Apple execs have seemed to be isolated in a bubble and are not listening to the rank and file anymore. The people they do listen to seem to be out of touch.
Do you have a source for this? At other tech companies I'm aware of, the numbers are still much lower than 100%, even after threats of performance impact.
Bit of a flaw in your logic there ;-)
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/20/technology/le...
Actually going is a whole different thing. Why not go to Google or FB or Anthropic if you’re quitting anyway, and they can match the offer.
Hmmmm. The stiff resolve of a spaghetti noodle. I "consider" changing jobs literally every single day.
When challenged, they say ‘someone else would’ve done it anyway, so it might as well be me’. Which isn’t incorrect I think.
The people at the helm of the first organization which cracks AI won't have any need for money
Further, I suspect any ai capable of outperforming the market would be too rational, to the point that you wouldn't be able to market it.
If the ai decided that bitcoin wasn't the future, and in 20 years time was proved right, how many people would have maintained that patience?
There comes a point where if an organization has something unique there is no point in selling it, they'd just use it for their own gain and watch the AI multiply their initial investment.
It has happened already, the best hedge funds are not open to investors but ran as a pension scheme for employees and founders.
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824...
https://www.businessinsider.com/openai-recruiters-luring-goo...
also, this shows $900k+ for L5 w/ 3-4 yoe: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/openai/salaries/software-en...
I wonder what a median rank-and-file employee at these companies make.
Prior discussion of median TC at OpenAI: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36460082
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/technology/artificial-int...
In summary, nobody gaf
People talk about the coherence of 700 people signing an open letter as being goal aligned, but I see it more like mortgage payment aligned.
The podcast This Week In Startups brought up an interesting point that many OpenAI employees are on corporate sponsored work visas and they really can't jump ship to Microsoft. Those visas are tied to OpenAI.
Not sure how many employees it affects and of those, how many are "key people".
(No doubt that Microsoft already understand the logistics of all this and still want to signal their open arms regardless.)
Link: [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38207857
Edit - added link
i think they can transfer visas quite easy compared to other companies.
Somebody downvoted sibling comment from x86x87 but they didn't give a reason.
It seems the concern for it not being trivial is supported by immigration attorneys. An example excerpt from https://banyan.law/how-risky-is-the-h-1b-transfer/ :
>My honest assessment is that before 2016, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend changing jobs upon the filing of the H-1B. USCIS approved almost 100% of legitimate, well-constructed transfer petitions “back then”.
>Now, it’s kind of a mess. H-1B denials have increased by 27%. Requests for Evidence (often feared as a potential denial indicator) are now issued at a 60% clip (a 40% increase).
>So, I’ve changed my tune and so have many others. Many companies are now encouraging employees not to give notice until the H-1B is approved, assuming premium processing is alive. We no longer feel 100% certain that your transfer petition will be approved, and we, therefore, do not want you to bear the suddenly real risks outlined above.
I don’t think employees would expect Microsoft to drop the ball though.
These are not your average groups of H1B workers.
As an employee of OpenAI, that went before congress for AI safety, jumping to Microsoft? I wouldn't be surprised if their internal immigration division already has documents stamped by high-level officials to keep those people in the country as a matter of national security. These people are not leaving the US unless they want to.
And probably more dangerous...
Its strange this has to be even said.
I knew doctors who got their Green cards fairly easily. Replacing these doctors is next to impossible. For starters, its just these are rarest of the rare talents. Even making such doctors is very hard because it takes decades of academic training, and practice. These are things with close to 100% drop out rate, and other requirements- which means you just have to make exceptions to have these people in.
Sure, being tied to your current employer in a way that makes it hard leave is a terrible position to be in, but these folks are also well-compensated workers living comfortably in the richest nation on earth. They're free to travel anywhere in the US and are free to leave their job at any time.
Actual slaves don't spend weekends wine-tasting in Napa or cutting work early to catch a Giants game.
Which is not comparable to having to leave the country you live in and possibly have started a family in because you change employers.
This, in an era when we're editing flowcharts, technical documents and schematic diagrams to avoid potentially offensive "master/slave" nomenclature.
Any visa issues will be resolved within a matter of days, not even weeks or months.
Of all the things, Visas/GCs are the least of the issues here. Think of it like a joining bonus for their immigrant employees.
The main benefit you get is good quality lawyers who make sure you do the process the right way.
Agree. Further I'd add forget Microsoft, even at typical F500 company these visa concerns will be rather small so as not to brought at level of executive attention. Any large company has immigration/visa related department dealing with such things every day with separate piles for critical vs normal employees.
Do you really think they're going to feign an offer to join, but then say "oh your immigration status is too complex"? With all of their resources?
That is going to go over well with current microsoft employees.
then the $1M-$2M/year OpenAI folks who never built a profitable product enter the building
If it wasn't such a PITA to prep for interviews I think companies would have to give out better raises to current employees to avoid mass attrition.
My conspiracy theory is that companies keep using leetcode style interviews because they know people don't want to study for them which makes them less likely to change jobs for more money.
Might or might not be worth it, but there’s no way that doesn’t create massive resentment.
A competent immigration attorney, can get you GC in a year if the company was ready to pay for it.
OTOH if you go in the normal EB1 lane it could take an eternity to get one, because now the pleb rules apply to you. Or worse if your bosses won't support you, you likely will not even complete the Visa time. So its really what the top people say will happen in these cases.
If you are important enough that you have to be there, for a company like Microsoft, these are some what like the cash they spend on food stocked in the floor pantry/kitchen areas.
They will just buy you a Green card.
The next visa is O1. O1 visa allows transfer only if you work in the same field/ goal as your original visa. In this case it is straightforward, since they are doing literally the same job in a different company. Microsoft applied for thousands of visas a year, there really is no issue here regarding visas except immigrant employee anxiety.
This is going to be fascinating to watch. You have to think all of the usual players are going to offer everyone at OpenAI crazy salaries to break from Microsoft, if for nothing else to disrupt them from taking over OpenAI for free and to sow chaos and "deal doubt" amongst the remaining. It is what I would do if I were Facebook or Google at least.
Meanwhile, at Microsoft, they had no raises this year because of "economic situations" or some such BS. So watching a bunch of folks get 2x raises doesn't sound like it is going to go down well. Not hard to imagine a lot of discontent with this from that angle as well.
Wrt whether it’s just the market itself or openai, note that news of sama’s firing caused ms shares a steep drop. Then news of sama’s employment with msft help set the share price at least back to where it was before.
The point is to discourage market distortion. Some jurisdictions also make employee contract conditions of a similar nature illegal too, as they interfere with personal freedoms.
A lot of business deals though specifically include clauses to prevent one partner from poaching the other's staff, as otherwise one side could do what appears to be happening here: Unilaterally taking over the entire business.
Also, in most jurisdictions, no poaching agreements are unenforcable if the employees themselves initiate the transfer. Signing that letter about leaving if Sam is not coming back probably qualifies as a resignation notice.
On top of this, most other AI leaders have already stated that they want OpenAI employees to come to them.
I have all the sympathy with OpenAI employees signing the letter and looking for new jobs.
However, MSFT is basically doing a cheap de-facto acquisition of OpenAI, a company they have invested in. This sets a terrible precedent for companies taking investment from strategic investors where they may stage an opportunistic de-facto acquisition at the sign of any trouble.
Given the relationship between the two, and the context of the matter, I don't expect no-poach agreements to hold much weight here.
We are though taking about OpenAI, by that time probably one of the five most valuable startups in the world.
No matter how smart or dumb that move was.
But now they are seen as saviors of humanity against the evil people who don't want to commercialize AI for maximum profit.
Absolutely brilliant!
Followed by: "Hey guys, we don't know exactly what you do but do join us by the several hundreds and don't you worry about compensation, we pretty much have unlimited money to throw at this."
And then they say people are too cynical of tech.
It is likely that Microsoft had staff working in areas that no longer required the attention they once did.
I want people in jobs too and I am currently going through an unseen reshuffle that is through no fault of my own. But layoffs occur for all sorts of reasons, many of which are not to reduce further acquisitions or hires.
If I was an employee who was laid off, I might justify it given that AI and those employees from OpenAI have become an acquirable gold mine all of a sudden.
Multiple times today. It's not that bad actually sometimes better than chatgpt 3.5 sometimes worse
The more things change the more things stay the same :D
So far, every time I use bard it gives me an incorrect answer. But I am happy with how fast it returns it, at least. I haven't had that problem with Bing chat (at least in the past few months), which has pretty much changed the way I search.
That being said, I hope Bard improves drastically. It would be nice to have more competition from them in this space.
I really wonder if there's going to be a new letter from OpenAI employees about demanding the board reinstate Sam and Greg and then resign -- but this time with an actual deadline that the undersigned declare their mass resignation if not met. A genuine letter of conditional resignation. No more "may choose to resign" -- this time, "do resign if".
Then everybody knows to move to Microsoft literally the next day, all at once.
Given the holiday, it seems like midnight the end of this Sunday would be suitable.
Another thing to chew on: Imagine if Googlers demanded that the board resign (which are the terms of Sam's reinstatement) or they all walk... I don't think they'd meet with nearly as much positive sentiment.
Interesting, though sadly not very complex. The sentiment around this is so positive because they're backing up Altman, and he's garnered quite a cult lately.
I guess what you are noticing is that there is a huge overlap between person cultists (fans of Altman, Musk, whatever) and disdain for that they are temporary being part of the lowly wage worker collective.
ex. Google's walkout [1]
"AGI for the benefit of all humanity" will become yet another SV "how do we make the most money" ploy.
It won't make a profit no matter what they do TBH
Microsoft's profit.
Re-Brand ChatGPT as Clippy Reloaded!
Great if true.
I have no doubt that MS can spend billions in cash or RSU to compensate all of them, but I do believe there’s some gotcha if exodus actually happens and MS might not be so generous in throwing millions of dollar cash for a general backend engineer recently joining OpenAI.
If they can get the 4 technical members of the executive team not counting Ilya - Mira, Woj, Bob, and Peter, plus a few other key people like Karpathy then they have what they need and OpenAI is effectively dead.
Building OpenAI at Microsoft from scratch is a tall order.
Having said that - i hope they do move over. That’s where ai ends and becomes nothing more but clippy with sprinkles.
MSFT should just give the employees space to make their own decision.