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Comment by ilioscio | Hacker News Reader

At least from the outside, OpenAI's messaging about this seems obnoxiously deluded, maybe some of those employees left because it starts feels like a cult built on foundations of self importance? Or maybe they really do know some things we don't know, but it seems like a lot of people are eager to keep giving them that excuse.

But then again, maybe they have such a menagerie of individuals with their heads in the clouds that they've created something of an echo chamber about the 'pure vision' that only they can manifest.

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Yeah it's a tough spot he's found himself in. How do you convince people who know more about this stuff than anybody that you're barreling towards something that's an improbability? It seems that most of them have made their choice to turn more towards reality, the material reality, and register their skill with an organization that holds that in higher regard. I can't blame them, and neither can he, but he also can't help himself when it comes to reiterating the hype. He might be projecting about that 'deep-seated cultural issue' he's prescribing to meta, and lashing out against those who don't accept it.

> I can't blame them, and neither can he

He's certainly trying with statements like this.

To be fair, he's hardly alone. Business is built on dupers and dupees. The duper talks about how important the mission of the business is while taking the value of the labor of the dupee. If he had to work for the money he pays the dupee, he would be a lot less interested in the mission.

I think it’s more of the latter. We’ve already seen others beat them in their own game. Only for them to come back with a new model.

In the end, this is the same back and forth that Apple and Sun shared in the late 90s or Meta and Google in 2014. We could have made non-competes illegal today but we didn’t.

(post employment) Non-competes have been non-enforcable in California since 1872. They became illegal in California last year.

A federal rule would be nice, but the state rule where a lot of the development happens could be sufficient.

In our times, every narcissist sees himself as a saint and a messiah on a mission to save the world, while doing the complete opposite of that. And they get very angry when they see other narcissists trying to do the same.

This is the most succinct description of our current reality that I've ever seen. Kudos!

lovely words. except there isn’t single one that gives two shits about the world

Ehh, this take feels ungenerous to me. You don't have to believe a private firm is a holy order for it to benefit from a culture filled with "we believe this specific project is Important" people vs "will work at whatever shop drops the most cash" people.

Mercenaries by definition select for individual dollar outcomes, and its impossible for that not to impact the way they operate in groups, which is generally to the group's detriment unless management is incredibly good at building group-first incentive structures that don't stomp individual outcomes.

That said, mercenary-missionaries are definitely a thing. They're unstoppable forces culturally and economically, and that could be who we're seeing move around here.

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