OpenAI employees did not want to go work for Microsoft
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
I can't read the article so maybe the content is more nuanced, but the framing irks me.
This all happened really fast and the offer was informal. I can only speak for myself but I do have a lot of respect for modern MS, and would have seriously considered the move if that's what kept the team together and comp was reasonable. I would be surprised if most people felt differently.
MS is trying to make me use Edge Browser by randomly refusing to let me use Bing chat in any other browser. This makes me think that MS is still evil and will force me to do things the moment they can. I gave up Bing Chat because of this and was using Perplexity.ai instead, until Bing got integrated into ChatGPT.
Another thing is the feel of the MS products is very different than OpenAI. For example, Bing chat again, would have a strange UX where it counts down my message allowance on the topic as I keep asking follow up questions as if it was designed for their convenience and not mine. OpenAI products on the other hand feel much more pleasant to use and don't stress me out even when things don't work as expected, which makes me think that the approach of product design is very different than MS.
Same tech running on the Azure servers, completely different product experiences. IMHO this points to completely different mindsets.
You think the employees at “Open” AI care about anything more than their large paychecks no matter what they say?
notice how the one OpenAI employee posted he'd "consider it" if the comp was right. Ie, it's about the money.
We're likely to see an 8-16x reduction in hardware costs over the next decade. That's about enough to shrink the current GPT-4 inference endpoints to a laptop/desktop sized hardware footprint.
Since it is MS providing the compute for equity, they would not have an incentive to discount.
All big corporations are "evil", as in, their decisionmaking is scaled and institutionalized enough to effectively implement the goal of "maximizing shareholder value" above what's good for you or society.
I'm not talking about "hey, we have this product that you might like", I'm talking about "if you want to use this product, you must also use this product". There's also no technical reason for it, sometimes they will let me use it.
Not O.K.
I'm not sure of any large one that doesn't. The incentives are aligned such that it's hard for them not to. It's easy to find examples of similar (sometimes almost identical) behavior from most large companies.
Google/Android/Chrome/YouTube
Meta/Messenger/Facebook/WhatsApp
...just to name a few.
All that said, I would expect Valve's total immediate-term 'worth' to be much less than it could be, which is the entire point of this topic. The reason companies treat their customers poorly is because it's profitable, but it also has consequences. You see large short to mid term growth in exchange for long term failure. That's why I think it's more typical to see public companies treat their customers poorly than it is for private companies. Generally the "employees" (including board and CEO) of a public company are evaluated on their short to mid-term performance.
By contrast private companies, especially ones that remain private long beyond the point of being able to 'cash out' with a public offering, tend to be more focused on the long term viability. So it's expected that their 'value', whatever it may be, would be less than it would be if they acted in a hostile fashion to their users.
The likely effect on day-to-day for OpenAI would have been a different promotion process, their stock being worth $0, and having to use a different videoconferencing solution. I worked at a startup that got bought by a huge company, and that's basically all that changed for us. Our team continues to work on our product, and I'm only vaguely aware of what the rest of the company even does. (I think they make servers? Like solder together chips and put them in the box.) Day-to-day doesn't change much; it's the same people, the same code, and the same goals. I didn't get bought by Microsoft, but I can't imagine that these strategic acquisitions are much different across the Fortune 500.
OS maybe but browser? They're going to great lengths to push Edge. Including harassing customers trying to download Chrome or Firefox.
Even though they are in fact considering the enterprise market as a key customer. I used to manage Apple devices (iPhone but also Mac which was much more work) for a long time and that was much harder.
For example, for a federated Apple ID you can still, after 5 years since release, not use federated Apple IDs if your Azure AD UPN and E-mail are not the same. In like 90% of enterprises this is not the case but they just won't fix this. Apple thinks we should just change our entire org for them. Well with Macs taking up 0,5% of our installed base that's just not going to happen (and this way it's not going to be much higher either).
Not to mention all the terrible Mac ports of windows software like VPN, Security etc that don't follow Mac concepts or installers. You have to pile workaround upon workaround.
Google created the meme that a company could be evil or not but we're past that age. Let's focus on the experiences, and while not forgetting the past (yes the 90s do not paint MS well), be forgiving. MS seems to continue to develop and even innovate on a lot of this tech, painting them as an evil dinosaur seems frankly ridiculous. Yes as with any large company, there will be parts that are good and parts that are not.
Disclaimer: I have never worked at Microsoft and own no stock directly though so have ETFs. And through OSS I have some friends there that I strongly respect and think are awesome and always think of them any time I see hate talk towards MS, which is unfortunately common...
It’s not a bad language, it’s just not a very good language either. Need efficiency? Rust/C++. Need an all round language? Node or Python, which are less efficient, but still powerful enough to power Instagram and well OpenAI as far as Python goes and LEGO as far as Typescript goes. Realistically you’re looking to choose between C#, Java and Go. Both Java and Go are miles ahead of C# in terms of concurrency, I mean, C# is still stuck with “await” after all, and while I guess you can have a lengthy debate on C# vs Java, 9 gazillion large companies use Java while 0 use C#.
It’s not that C# is bad, like I said. It’s never really been better than it is now, it’s more a question of why would you ever use it? Even the C# developers at Microsoft admit to prototyping using Python because it’s just so much faster to build things with it, and while they do move things to C#, you have to wonder if they would if they weren’t working for Microsoft.
Hard to understand this point of view with:
- vscode being "open source", conveniently leaving out flagship features like live share and Python extension
- Increase of "in your face, fuck you" dark patterns like forcing an account for Windows setup, forcing ms authenticator, etc
Yes they have some problems in hiding their attempts for lockin on the Windows side but ignoring all the good and just labeling them terrible for that is troubling.
I think GP's point is that PyLance and Pyright, while free, are still proprietary and not open-source.
there's no way you guys would get the same comp though? like not even close. MSFT irrespective of how much it wants you is not going to honor the 10X increase in valuation from the upcoming $90 billion valuation.
Even if they do, you will miss on the upside. MSFT stock is not going to 10X but OpenAI's might.
Real MSFT stock beats a theoretical could-have-been with a 10x upside.
As someone who has done startups, I highly agree with this statement.
But for a lot of people doing start ups for the first time (including my younger self) they don't understand the headache of private market equity, and thus do not apply the correct discount.
As they say, a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush.
Nadella was directly involved and he's way smarter than that. Comping one the best ML teams in the world correctly is child's play compared to undoing Balmer's open source mess.
So most likely, if most of the employees moved over to Microsoft, they wouldn't get the same comp, at most 44% of the company would.
Yes, the "you guys" average HN demographic per the gp comment.
They would have to create some kind of crazy structure to avoid wrecking their levels. But of course it could be done.
If the valuation goes up x10 after next round average developer probably will have the same money locked in rsu/options.
Not the person you are replying to, but it depends on how diluted it gets. If they print 9x of currently outstanding shares as the value goes 10x, it would result in those original shares being worth exactly the same as before the 10x jump.
But I agree with you overall, in terms of the actual reality. I don’t think any company with half a brain would do that.
I'm not talking about key people, about first 50 employees, etc. Regular people.
I'm pretty sure it doesn't work like that due to the existence of leverage. You can make MSFT have the potential to 10x (or ÷10) if you want.
Personally, I prefer to make tons of money, but as someone who will not have a say in whether to participate in an AI-driven world, I would prefer if there were non-profit counterweights. Perhaps governments will have the wherewithal to steer things but I am somewhat concerned.
Then add college administrators to that mix.
Large non-profits optimize for revenue, small ones for impact.
The big fish eat the little ones or turn them into impact sharecroppers.
It is human nature for people to want power, whether it is power over others or the power to have autonomy, or anything in-between.
I have to assume that the environment there was pretty exciting as well, and I hope the energy wasn't ruined by this. I like being surprised by technology and I love seeing people innovate because of what you and your team have pushed to the forefront. Godspeed.
A lot of complex issues and perspectives packed into those few words...
For most employees, their OpenAI stock would have been worth even more than their salary at its current valuation, and it has the potential to potentially be worth quite a bit more in the future.
Replacing it with Microsoft stock would have made it a sure thing - but also with much less growth potential.
I'd be really curious to hear if Microsoft actually got so far as to figure out what to offer OpenAI employees in terms of an equity offer.
They have PPUs, which is similar to profit sharing
What a clusterfuck. I feel bad for anyone who supported the board.
Don't envy martyrs, wish for a world without the need for them.
But for someone who's not a millionaire that looks at the situation and doesn't know how it will shake out, and maybe believes it's 60/40 or 75/25 against what they think is right, it's possible that principle can make up the difference in those assessments and make the difference in what they choose.
Just because someone isn't passing up a "sure thing" doesn't mean they aren't sacrificing something, especially when most sure things aren't actually sure at all. In reality it's all a matter of statistical likelihoods (and we either think of them that way, or like most people use a different model of thinking that amounts to the same thing while convincing us it's not), so I don't see this situation as being all that different.
It also may be that's exactly the sort of person that Microsoft prefers, too, but I don't know.
In what world in today’s market do you really think open AI would ever see its value at an exit based on their current revenue model?
1. Bail to Microsoft. Your salary is matched but your equity (in whatever OpenAI entity) is forfeit. You have to move to Washington potentially, and definitely have to deal with job switching stress. If you're lucky, you will get the same corporate RSU grant that the Office team got for shipping on time.
2. Stay at OpenAI. You don't have to move or have the stress of starting a new job. Maybe it implodes and you have to take your very-marketable skills elsewhere. Maybe it all works out and your equity is worth millions.
I know which I would pick.
I have to assume that the individuals involved are under a mix of social and legal pressure to not talk about the circumstances.
I don't know how anyone can call the board's action a "coup." Calling it that seems to be a propagandistic abuse of the term.
The board was in charge, and it's not a coup if it fires a subordinate (the CEO). If anything, the coup was getting the board ousted.
>The board was in charge, and it's not a coup if it fires a subordinate (the CEO). If anything, the coup was getting the board ousted.
The CEO was a member of the board and the ones that fired the CEO also fired the Chairman of the Board, so the board went from 6 to 4. So far there's been even less of an explanation for the firing of the Chairman of the Board - who they offered to let remain as a regular employee - than there has been for Altman, though I see the removal of the Chairman as potentially the most egregious and coup-like.
Why do we have voting in board and democracy in the first place if one cannot use it for its intended use case without the fear of retaliation?
They clearly could have been more transparent, but it still does not make it as coup.
If you think so - that is why populism is considered as threat for democracy.
The GP was pretty clear that he thought "the entire board decided to do a coup," which does not fit that interpretation.
But even the scenario you describe isn't something that can be properly described as a "coup." In that case, the employees are just appealing to a legitimate higher authority, which is a totally OK thing to do (e.g. it's not wrong to report a bribe-taking boss to the company ethics hotline). IMHO, a coup is where subordinates illegitimately usurp and depose the highest authority from below.
I don't think invoking a higher power necessarily makes it not a coup. To me, a coup is when you angle to relieve someone from office above you by any means. But reasonable people can disagree on that, I suppose.
However, by trying to do so swiftly and not allowing him a chance to retaliate they pissed off Microsoft and the employees. At that point, they were basically forced to reinstate him or the entire company would collapse — and if they do that, they can't also go on record clarifying why he's bad.
* this is my vague recollection based on reading past discussions. I'm on my phone right now and unfortunately don't have any sources I can link, take this with a grain of salt.
Edit: a few links
That was my guess... but only because it was the only scenario I could think of where the board being curiously and obviously intentionally vague about 'why' in the announcement, but still saying more than nothing, made sense.
Board’s job is to hire or fire CEO. Technically CEO made the coup since he managed to throw his bosses out of their positions.
https://time.com/6342827/ceo-of-the-year-2023-sam-altman/
At least, that was how I felt after reading it.
Basically, within the span of a year, OpenAI transformed from a research lab inside a non-profit that was pursuing a seemingly-Quixiotic dream of artificial general intelligence (AGI)... into one of the fastest-growing for-profit software companies of all time via its creation of the chat-based generative AI category (aka ChatGPT) and its consumer/enterprise SaaS and API offerings.
The board -- or, at least, its 4 remaining non-CEO members -- thought that this was too much, too fast, and too soon, and that there was a narrow window of time where they could slow things down and refocus on the original non-profit mission. They also felt that Altman was a bit of a force of nature, had his own ideas about where OpenAI was going, and treated "board management" as one of his CEO skills to route around obstacles.
Once a board loses trust of their CEO, unfortunately, there is usually only one blunt and powerful tool left: firing the CEO.
And this happens pretty often. As the investor Jerry Neumann once put it, "Your board of directors is probably going to fire you."[1] Boards have very few ways to actually take action when they are worried about a company or institution; firing management is one of the few "course correction" actions they can take quickly.
In OpenAI's case, if they had a for-profit board, that board would probably have been ecstatic with Altman and the company's progress. But this was not a for-profit board. It was a non-profit (mission-oriented) board meant to oversee the safe rollout of AGI. Those board members weren't sure the best way to do that was to become one of the world's largest for-profit software companies.
I'd speculate that it was probably an emotional decision and the full implications were not entirely thought through until it was too late. I'd also speculate that this explains why Ilya Sutskever felt some immediate regret, because his goal wasn't to destroy OpenAI (or inspire an employee revolt) but to put its non-profit mission back into focus. I like to practice the principle of charity[2], and, in this case, I think the non-profit board was not acting maliciously but simply did not realize the knock-on effects of trying to replace a CEO when everything at the company seems to be "going right."
I suspect Altman thought the best way to roll out AI was via iterative product development and fast revenue growth to finance the GPU demands, utilizing corporate partnerships (Microsoft), viral word-of-mouth marketing, and SaaS/API fees (ChatGPT). Running out of data center compute started to become a primary concern, so it wouldn't surprise me if safety took a backseat to this. Remember, all this growth happened in the span of a year. Perhaps Altman thought he was satisfying the safety concerns simply by talking to regulators, making iterative releases, and going on a speaking tour about it, but the board thought the only way to go safely was to go slower. I'm sure we'll learn more after some books are written about the episode.
[1]: https://reactionwheel.net/2021/11/your-boards-of-directors-i...
Things would have played out very differently if the board was more experienced and thoughtful. Their hearts might have been in the right place, but their actions were reckless and ultimately backfired.
I think the old board came out of this looking even worse, but that doesn't mean Altman ended up better off than if he had managed things better from the start.
What should they have done to accomplish their goal?
So the board did this. They jumped the gun - this extreme move might have become justified at a later point in time, but definitely not yet. In a pedestrian understanding of game theory typical of AI doomsday cult members, the board failed to anticipate that other actors may not agree with their interpretation of reality, and perform their own actions in response. This response largely boiled down to scattering the institutional knowledge of OpenAI to the winds, in their eyes greatly exacerbating the safety concerns that led to firing Altman in the first place.
Altman, meanwhile, as a strong believer in OpenAI's mission, attempted to salvage the situation by brokering a deal to transfer OpenAI's institutional knowledge to Microsoft.
After having their shitty options explained to them - exacerbate a potential safety risk by seeding 750 new AI companies, leave control of the situation to Microsoft's board or step down and retain control under the OpenAI non-profit, they folded like a wet paper bag. The whole saga was a waste of their board seats and influence on humanity's first deployment of AGI. They all got the outcome that their competence deserved.
>"No one has explained how or why the entire board decided to do a coup ..."
To which I responded that there was in fact a very recent and relevant update to this. Your opinion on whether she belonged on the board is completely irrelevant to this fact and also childish.
Could not be further from the truth.
Idk where Microsoft would fit in that hierarchy, like Amazon it's kind of hit or miss but with less variance and extrema. From what I've seen and heard, both Gaming and Azure are pretty darn competent these days from an engineering and product perspective. Not perfect of course, but nothing is.
It was a competitive model for the time, it was made in 2021 if I recall in cooperation with Nvidia. The largest model at the time (and still remains one of the largest models ever made).
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/using-deepspeed-and-megatr...
The thing here is that OpenAI managed to create GPT4 - that no one matched yet.
Similar for Cortana.
Now, I don't like any of those products, but, still, effort is seen.
My hot take is that 2018 Google was late 90s MSFT more or less (juggernaut resting on their laurels and cashing in on their monopoly). Today, they're more like mid 2000s MSFT. Here's hoping 'tomorrow' they'll have a similar comeback.
Microsoft has a market cap of $2.8 Trillion.
IBM is only at $146 Billion. But IBM still has a higher head count.
You'd have to be blind to consider Red Hat not influential in its sphere.
While Microsoft makes $73B profit, IBM makes $2B profit.
Microsoft is in the group of "big five" tech companies (Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft). IBM is not in that group.
The reason for that is IBM is significantly smaller in terms of revenue and market cap and so on. IBM exists in a tier below the "big tech" level. This is how company sizes are measured.
Very simple. Not complicated.
Server operating systems are a small fraction of Microsoft's business.
i.e. since they're older they're bigger
keep in mind that IBM[0] is over a hundred years old, and microsoft isn't even half of that [0]
[0] wikipedia
it would merely settle "for now" becuase as soon as either of them get succeded you will have to repeat the contest
Microsoft is doing absolutely great under Satya Nadella.
The AI revolution is still underway, we don't know who missed what yet. In term of research output. Most of the ground breaking work did "not" come from msft. They just bough they way in. Valid strategy, but definitely not novel.
Imo they barely kept pace largely by leveraging existing software and repurposing it for cloud. They still seem to be playing catch-up with multiple solutions to the same problem--some deprecated, some preview.
Take for instance Postgres. Azure had Single Server built on Windows containers. They acqui-hired Citus to build out distributed and they released Flexible Postgres as a Linux-based replacement for SS. Flexible still doesn't have feature parity with Single Server and doesn't have feature parity with other cloud vendors (pg_wait_sampling roll-up is missing last time I checked a few months back).
To make matters worse, their data migration tools are sorely lacking as well.
https://www.knowledgehut.com/blog/cloud-computing/top-cloud-...
You have a point with the cloud computing. I’d hesitate to call it a revolution though. I’d never willingly use a microsoft cloud product if I wasn’t forced to by my employer.
There's just a feeeew things. Yeah, we're gonna tell you when to restart, we'll update it for you. We'll tell you what you can and can't run on your own machine. We'll "protect you" by trying to keep you inside the Microsoft Store, so you can adjust to buying all of your software instead of getting anything for free. Freedom is bad!
What can Microsoft do for a programmer who self-hosts and doesn't trust proprietary software? They co-opted GitHub but that really just reduced trust in GitHub more than anything. And GitHub itself is proprietary software built on top of Git. VS Code is a laggy mess. Azure has nothing to hook me. LLMs are toys or another privacy invasion vector to "analyze". I don't trust them to store my e-mail.
Everything MS touches dies a slow death. Look at Skype.
Ignore them and market themselves to the remaining 99% of programmers.
Many people use proprietary software because they're forced to for work or social circumstances (i.e. banking and messaging apps), not by choice. In other words, they're socially engineered into it. Why trust software you can't inspect? Because it has a big brand behind it? Because no software company has ever betrayed the trust of its customers? Companies never do deals with shady partners that end up betraying them, and in turn their customers too? Transparency fixes this, and it can mitigate a company going rogue on its own product and customers.
Libre software can certainly suck in some areas of the stack, but at least I can do more than send an e-mail to an unmonitored inbox at a corporation where my ass doesn't matter as soon as they have my money. I'll get a form letter containing a response to what some random bot thinks I'm talking about, and my concern will not be addressed, even as a paying customer. In a world of software that I can inspect the code of, I might be able to research my way out of a tech issue. The contention is that even as a customer, I can't count on Microsoft addressing any problems I encounter. If you're already coming at me with "get ignored, go away" then what's the incentive to engage at all?
You're right that some sectors are ignored, probably because they believe they should be paid for providing certain things. Fair to have that opinion, but it's also fair for me to disagree with it, criticize it, and share that criticism.
I still give Microsoft software a shot from time to time, to make sure my understanding of it is at least semi-recent. But by and large, I don't enjoy my interactions with their ecosystem. Setting up Minecraft Realms and mitigating differences between Java and Bedrock was a PITA. The migration from Mojang was a pain. I did enjoy getting Bedrock for free with my transfer. That was a solid move that showed they understood it was a pain and were willing to part with a little revenue in the short term in the hopes I'd buy content in the long term. (I did, for the record.)
But that's video games. I don't mind them being proprietary because I'm there to have fun. As long as it's not chatting over the network or doing analytics and other shit, I'm fine with a game not coming with source code. But I also love that gzDoom, darkplaces, TADS, LÖVE2D, TIC-80, and other open engines exist where people can bring their own creations to life in a non-profit environment. Microsoft itself started in a bougie garage, they ought to appreciate the spirit of DIY.
I've paid for things so it's not like I won't buy anything. My experience and view is not any less deserving of expression simply because it's less popular, though. There are plenty of people out there similar to me in distrusting Microsoft and other big tech companies' software. Minecraft isn't perfect, it has analytics and a forced word filter, and no way to self-host a Bedrock server. None of those were a thing when I bought it back in 2011 or so. They want me to pay for a Realm for that. And I did, for a little while, due to family members wanting to play, but I realized I could host it for cheaper. Eventually we stopped playing anyway, so I didn't have to worry about it.
Most people simply don't care about software freedom, and chide and ridicule those who do. Unsurprising, but still no less disappointing when encountering it among those who like to develop an air of distinction and taste but come up lacking in conversation. If they care so little, why be shitty to those who do?
Because for nearly everyone, that’s all software.
It's not a conscious, calculated decision being made. It's social engineering in action. Most people don't read the Terms and Conditions. Most people don't understand how to inspect their computers for malware or misbehaving processes. They aren't qualified to determine the trustworthiness of their software. So we're supposed to pretend people chose to have details of how to fix their shit hidden from them? No, it was actions from industry to socially manipulate and normalize practices. Average people are being taken advantage of by industry, and the people who say something about it get blown off because "it just doesn't matter".
Yeah, sure, until it does. And they'll be too fucked to do anything about it, because human nature can never overcome this delusional positivity that life is fine and nobody is bad and businesses never mislead people. People with this outlook are poor at evaluating risk.
Remember the whole antitrust thing? Microsoft was under a consent decree that expired between 2007-2009 (different provisions expired at different times).
That decree, combined with the material threat of additional action during that time window, limited their ability to compete (because that's, well, the entire point of a consent decree motivated by an antitrust settlement).
There's a reason that you see a notable difference in Microsoft's market position and strategy from 2012-present compared to the previous decade (2001-2012). The timing of the Ballmer-to-Nadella transition is not coincidental; it's indicative of the larger shift the company made as they repositioned themselves to aggressively expand again.
It was simply a failure of execution. Can you point to one thing in the consent decree that stopped them from competing better in mobile?
The issue is they went and rewrote a chunk of it, breaking APIs and fucked all the developers off, then abandoned it.
The only thing they are is fucking stupid morons.
The failure of Windows Mobile, and later Windows phone, had little to do with being "slow."
Heck I've done it myself, Was happy where I was, but wanted a pay bump, shopped around, went back to my employer and said if you will pay (highest bid + percentage) I'll stay, but otherwise I'm out the door. They paid up.
Its the gamble you take. Granted when most off the staff also have the same demands it puts the company more on the back foot.
Just a note, I've also taken work for less pay, but (imo) better working conditions. It all just depends on what you want your working conditions to be and what your willing to accept in terms of comp.
> The former OpenAI employee estimated that, of the hundreds of people who signed the letter saying they would leave, "probably 70% of the folks on that list were like, 'Hey, can we, you know, have this tender go through?'"
If that one person's speculation is true, does the non-profit have an alignment problem, with employees who are doing the technical work -- that the employees are motivated more by individual financial situations, than by the non-profit's mission?
(Is it possible to structure things such that the people doing the work don't have to think about their individual financial situations, and can focus 100% on the actual mission? Can they hire enough of the best people for their mission that way? And maybe also keep key technical talent away from competitors that way?)
Yes, and moreover they've created a compensation structure which actively creates incentives that are contrary to the charity's mission.
This was probably the easiest way to attract talent that had high paying alternatives and weren't particularly interested in the charity's mission, but that was always a fundamental problem with choosing a for-profit entity with that kind of needs as the primary funding vehicle for the charity and also the primary means by which it would achieve research, etc., directed at its charitable purpose.
The problem -- taking OpenAI's stated charitable mission at face value [0] -- is that there was nowhere close to enough money available from people concerned with that mission to pay for it, and OpenAI's response was to go all-in on the most straightforward path of raising sufficient funds given what resources it had and what the market looked like without sufficiently considering the alignment of its fundraising mechanism with the purpose for which it was raising funds.
[0] which I should emphasize that I do for the sake of argument, not because I necessarily believe that it represents the genuine purposes of the people involved even initially.
I don't believe this is necessarily in conflict with the mission though. Employees are mercenaries, it's up to management/leadership to enforce the mission and make sure employees contribute to it positively. The employee becomes forcefully aligned with the mission because that is the key to their personal enrichment. They are paid to contribute, their personal beliefs are not all that important.
I think that might be the norm, but it's sounds like an awful dynamic.
It's also unfortunate if you want to do something better. We have many mercenaries companies that have appropriated some of the language we might use to characterize something better.
So, say you're trying to found a company with grand ideals, made up of people who care about the mission, you actively want a diversity of ideas, etc., and almost every sentence you can think of to communicated that a bunch of candidates nodding, "Yeah, yeah, whatever, we've heard this a hundred times, just tell me what the TC is, for the 18 months I'll stay here".
But surely, the primary tool that leadership has to do that is by selecting employees who are on the same page as them. A purely mercenary workforce is very undesirable unless the company is also mercenary.
Mostly no. People may not only care about money. But money is pretty important--at least until you get into pretty large numbers. And then it's still a pretty important keeping score metric.
Going from an agile startup environment to an F50 is a huge leap culturally. It's like going from Summer science camp to the army.
They'd have problems landing new gigs where they worked on OpenAI, with OpenAI's resources, team, etc.
The main reason why you'd not want to do it is that Startup Funny Money stock options won't be as high as they might be if you'd stay independent.
The message of the letter was clear and the gun being held at boards head was credible. And what 90%+ supported on paper?
Even if many of the 90% are lukewarm & half-arsed, from a leadership perspective that's conclusively game over.
I do think he legitimately believes he's doing the right thing though all throughout, which maybe makes it more scary.
Sorta like how Mark Zuckerberg seemed to truly believe in Facebook's mission and wound up having all sorts of negative externalities for the world. Mark Zuckerberg just isn't quite as effective as Sam Altman, and it's easier to be suspicious of his motives.
Not to say that psychopaths are necessarily bad. Peter in Ender's Shadow turned out great!
But it does seem dangerous for 1 person to hold so much power over the future of humanity.
Sam Altman's reasoning for him having all the power, I think, is that “short timelines and slow takeoff is likely the safest quadrant of the short/long timelines and slow/fast takeoff matrix.”
If you believe that and believe that Sam Altman having complete control of OpenAI is the best way to accomplish that, everything seems fine.
I'd personally have preferred trying to optimize for long timelines and a slow takeoff too, which I think might have been doable if we'd devoted more resources to neglected approaches to AI alignment–like enhancing human capabilities with BCI and other stuff like that.
And the most important company in human history? The hell is that guy smoking, because I've got good shit and that's some serious hyperbole.
Is the hype machine in the room with us right now?
But then, considering the reputation of young Bill and the one Sam seems to be acquiring, maybe the "powered" traits that apparently set him apart from other YC candidates weren't so positive after all...
Maybe Git...? I thought that was pretty cool back in 2006.
I really think the opposite. I think he's after the biggest payday/most power he can get, and anything else is a secondary consideration.
I can't distinguish between a thirst for money and a thirst for power because above a certain level, they're essentially the same thing.
Not even the weird shitcoin with the eye scanner he's been pushing (WorldCoin)?
Based on the last 5 years of crypto hype and failures across the industry, the only motivating factor to get involved in it seems to be 'increase their personal net worth'.
“I get like all of the power of running OpenAI” “I don’t think it’s particularly altruistic. Like it would be if I didn’t already have a bunch of money. The money is gonna pile up faster than I can spend it anyway.”
Those I think are either from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sWH2e5xpdo or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hpuPi7YZX8
"I mean I have like lots of selfish reasons for doing this and as you've said I get like all the power of running OpenAI, but I can't think of anything more fulfilling to work on and I don't think it's particularly altruistic, it would be if I didn't already have a bunch of money, yeah, the money is gonna pile up faster than I can spend it"
Some other fascinating and relevant stuff in that video too.
He's also said something similar in another interview:
“One of the takeaways I’ve learned is that this concept of having enough money is not an idea that’s easy to get across to people. I have enough money. What I want more of is, like, an interesting life, impact; access to be in the conversation. So I still get a lot of selfish benefit from this. What else am I going to do with my time? This is really great. I cannot imagine a more interesting life than this one and a more interesting thing to work on.”
I certainly didn't interpret as him disagreeing with his statement "I mean I have like lots of selfish reasons for doing this"
It's the "as you've said" part of "as you've said I get like all the power of running OpenAI" that would make me inclined to think what you wrote here.
But I do think there's a greater chance that he is saying that he does like the power.
There's also another quote either in this video or the other one I shared I think where he's asked why he's doing this, or what motivates him, or something like that, and he responds with something like "I'd be lying if I didn't say I really like the power"
I think they both believe they are good and doing good.
People tend to be more suspicious of Mark Zuckerberg's motives than Sam Altman's.
Sam Altman himself even said he can't be trusted but that was ok because of the company structure and then, when he needed to, overpowered that structure he claimed was necessary: https://x.com/tobyordoxford/status/1727624526450581571?s=20
holy shit, hype is unreal :D
Psychopathy is a personality disorder indicated by a pattern of lying, cunning, manipulating, glibness, exploiting, heedlessness, arrogance, delusions of grandeur, sexual promiscuity, low self-control, disregard for morality, lack of acceptance of responsibility, callousness, and lack of empathy and remorse.
(Which, now I read it, is disappointingly pattern matching the billionaire who invested in both OpenAI and also a BCI startup currently looking for human test subjects).
I can see arguments for either saying Altman has delusions of grandeur or lack of acceptance of responsibility depending on if you believe OpenAI is going too fast or if it's slowing things down unnecessarily, but they can't both be true at the same time.
However, there seems to be a decent amount of evidence that Sam has done exactly what you're talking about.
He manipulated and was "not consistently candid" with the board, he got all the OpenAI employees to support him in his power struggles, he made them afraid to stand up to him (https://x.com/tobyordoxford/status/1727631406178672993?s=20), he exhibited delusions (though I guess they were correct) of grandeur with pg with a glint in his eye making clear to pg that he wanted to take over yc, he did little things like made it seem that he was cool with Eliezer Yudkowsky with a photo op but didn't really chat with him, etc.
Again, I am not sure this perspective is necessarily right (and I may be convinced just because he's such an effective psychopath).
In any case, I think this is a pretty good explanation of this perspective: https://x.com/erikphoel/status/1731703696197599537?s=20
Elon Musk actually matches several of those poorly, and matches bipolar disorder much better (most of those are also bipolar or billionaire symptoms, while psychopathy is inconsistent with many Musk symptoms like catatonia): https://gwern.net/note/musk
(Since my original comment, I've remembered that even professionals in this field don't remote-diagnose people like I kinda did).
There are some problems that need to get cleared up for that to happen. The system needs to loose the cutoff date, be a bit more deterministic and still function. The whole quagmire around copyright needs to get resolved. (Because it looks like the output of LLM's is immediately in the public domain)
If I worked at OpenAI, I would be looking for that contract and reading it myself. Because giving away all the IP for the half assed runway where you have to get to AGI... doesn't sound like it ends in a massive pay day. MS may have cleaned up its public image in the recent years, or been displaced by things people hate and fear more. But there is this: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/campaigns/microsoft-ai/ and the underlying tos looks a like like old school M$ and shady dealings.
LLMs are impressive, can increase productivity for certain workers in certain industries etc, yes but avoid reaching like that please.
From: https://openai.com/our-structure ...
"While our partnership with Microsoft includes a multibillion dollar investment, OpenAI remains an entirely independent company governed by the OpenAI Nonprofit. Microsoft has no board seat and no control. And, as explained above, AGI is explicitly carved out of all commercial and IP licensing agreements."
I see how your post could be read as you state but the simplest reading is what I said.
I do think it is a little unfair to characterize MSFT as “slow and boring” when they’ve been the ones to make the fastest pivot to supporting generative AI as a product line
"You did a great job this year and met or exceeded all of the metrics we measured, but your compa ratio is just too high so instead of a raise we are going to give you a lump sum instead."
Big company culture vs. startup culture is a known issue. People choose to work for startups to avoid that big company culture, so if a big company buys you out then it's time to move on.
I probably wouldn't in an employment situation where it could come back to bite me. But lots of people sign, virtually or otherwise, petitions in the heat of the moment because emotions or it's just the path of least resistance. And "at current compensation levels" wasn't a contractual promise and would probably have had plenty of strings attached.
There are plenty of people who think that. Even the OA executives apparently weren't nearly as enthused with Altman as all those social-media hearts might lead one to assume. See the Time article yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38550240 specifically
The board expected pressure from investors and media. But they misjudged the scale of the blowback from within the company, in part because they had reason to believe the executive team would respond differently, according to two people familiar with the board’s thinking, who say the board’s move to oust Altman was informed by senior OpenAI leaders, who had approached them with a variety of concerns about Altman’s behavior and its effect on the company’s culture.That is easy to answer: BI belongs to the infamous German media conglomerate Axel Springer [1], hosting one of Europe's most vile, disgusting and scandal-ridden [2][3] tabloids called "BILD" and its barely veiled sister publication "WELT".
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Insider
[2] https://www.swr.de/swr2/wissen/70-jahre-bild-zeitung-zwische...
[3] https://de.statista.com/infografik/2588/publikationen-mit-de...
Lol. I was wondering about this...
It is not conspiracy anything to think it is certainly happening elsewhere.
And there is so much critical open source stuff on github... that said, github is at least noscript/basic (x)html friendly for its core functions.
Do we?
What evidence is there that Microsoft was "pulling the strings in the shadows"?
As far as we know Microsoft only found out a minute before Sam did that he was being fired.
What specific decision did Microsoft reverse?
We already know that they had no say in Sam's firing or any specific pull in his rehiring.
Or is there any proof we have that Microsoft forced the reversal of Sam's firing?
Edit: tested in w3m
Well, it is getting worse and worse.
sama found a flock. this will go poorly.