I'd be pretty peeved if I backed a non-profit through its most-risky early days only for them to turn around and shun the original philanthropic mission in the spirit of profit maximization...
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/24/23654701/openai-elon-musk...
Where do you get that idea?
How exactly were they entitled to his $1B donation?
They weren't. But neither is Musk entitled to anything from OpenAI and the lawsuit was BS.
He pulled his donation because he wasn't given total control, and now he is being a sore loser about it with a failed lawsuit.
Like, you can't just directly cause the bad thing to happen with your actions, and then cry about it when someone goes to a different group for funding.
If Elon didn't want the microsoft deal to happen then he shouldn't have reneged on his funding promise just because they refused to give up complete control to him.
> Elon did not force them to choose Microsoft.
By rescinding his offer, he did force them to make drastic changes in order to get new funding.
> Now he can move on with his life.
Are you familiar with Elon?
Ok great.
Then that means that any complaints from Elon about selling out are completely invalid, and it makes no sense for him to be mad about such a simple disagreement.
> Now he can move on with his life.
That would be wonderful.
Unfortunately you were the person arguing that it was somehow deserved for him to sue.
It is not deserved because he was the one who cause them to sell out to Microsoft.
That is the point.
The point is that you can't directly cause the supposedly bad action to happen, and then claim that you have been morally wronged when someone gets funding elsewhere.
If you think that it was merely a disagreement, then fine. Your previous arguments are invalid where you try to claim that this is some huge sellout situation, when it is directly Elons fault.
This is the equivalent of me coming to you and promising you money so that you can pull off a risky business move, then at the critical moment when I don’t like something pulling that money. Sure I might be entitled to do that as it is my money, but it’s a dick move and would certainly leave you holding the bag.
It is extremely delusional to expect to receive $1 billion dollars unconditionally.
Do you honestly believe that if you were in Elon Musks shoes, that you would have given away a billion dollars without any conditions? How would you feel when you saw them turn around and sell out to Microsoft instead? Expecting $1B unconditionally seems like an asshole expectation. Delusional and childish entitlement.
Do you believe that Microsoft has donated billions to OpenAI unconditionally?
They did not give up control to Microsoft.
If that were true, the Apple deal (which Microsoft opposed) would not have just happened.
Microsoft needs Apple as a strong competitor. Otherwise they will be declared a monopoly and broken up by regulators. Microsoft was smart to use OpenAI as a proxy for this deal.
LOL!
I would love to see your evidence that Apple's new AI offering will be running on Microsoft's infrastructure.
OpenAI models run on Azure infrastructure. Apple is just a client and will be paying Microsoft via OpenAI to run it.
Apple also has their own models running on their own infrastructure. I'm not saying that Microsoft or OpenAI has anything to do with that.
Microsoft was a breakup risk back when all that existed were computers and they had 95+% market share.
On the contrary, it was the fact Elon pulled the $1B he had previously offered that put the company in jeopardy.
https://www.semafor.com/article/03/24/2023/the-secret-histor...
The story I heard was that Musk pulled the $1B and THEN they were forced to go profit in order to survive.
https://www.semafor.com/article/03/24/2023/the-secret-histor...
Mozilla has the same structure with a for-profit corporation owned by the nonprofit, which allows it to take Google's money in exchange for default search engine placement. Likewise with Wikipedia/Wikimedia, Newman's Own, and so on.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p598.pdf
https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2021/jun/unrelated-busi...
Yes, openai can't be a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker. This is a feature not a bug.
According to the OpenAI charter, their mission is to "ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity." That's their legally binding mission - not selling cloud services by the token or licensing their models to companies like Microsoft and Apple. Any lawyer with half a brain would have advised them that those activities would almost certainly be found by the IRS and the courts to be unrelated business activities, so they spun them off as a for-profit corporation instead of taking an entirely unnecessary risk.
Just because their product is vaguely AGI related doesn't mean it has anything to do with their actual mission.
Based on this thread I find that incredibly hard to believe. Incredibly.
> It's only when you start doing completely unrelated activities, like Mozilla's women who code
Or like... Mozilla Firefox. Cause that's why they've had Mozilla Corporation since 2005. Google pays the corporation for default search engine placement and all of the full time Firefox developers I've ever known have worked for the corporation, not the nonprofit.
It doesn't take much more than showing up and taking responsibility when no one else does.
>Or like... Mozilla Firefox. Cause that's why they've had Mozilla Corporation since 2005.
Yes, because Mozilla has always wanted to do more than be a browser company.
Remember Firefox OS?
Not for profits who have weird structures are there to make sure they can be looted for the benefit of the people running them, or to be used for pet projects that have nothing to do with the original charter.
Your argument aside, I am interested to hear you found it straightforward to run a successful non-profit.
Any tips for someone who is interested to enter that space?
If you don't turn it into a personal fiefdom expect hard work, no gratitude and eventual burnout.
The IRS reneged, which led to the creation of the Mozilla Corporation for-profit subsidiary in 2005 to take the Google search revshare from that time on (we paid negotiated back taxes for the period when they said sponsorship revenue was okay to take tax-free into the 501c3).
They only own about 2% of it. The rest is split between Microsoft and other investors.
I think most people (aside from Elon) are happy they didn't shut-down.
I can understand not wanting Elon to be the head of your company. His behavior is a little erratic.