174 karma · joined December 30, 2012
Openai investors had only the leverage of "we won't invest more and you're running an operating loss", they did not actually have a case in court. The investment contract they signed stated "view your investment as a donation" and "this investment confers no fiduciary duties from the board".
The board had the leverage of "you employees and investors value your stock holdings, and if the company fails, those stock holdings to to zero".
The resolution I think was (could be wrong) just to initially reduce the size of the board to three. So it isn't completely guaranteed which side won the battle for control: it's not impossible that the AI safety people might still control the board. Maybe one or both of the new board members is secretly convinced by the AI safety movement.
The battle for public opinion is a different battle, and it looks extremely likely that the AI safety people lost that battle. Maybe it was still worth it for them, if they did in fact win or at least stalemate the battle for control of openai.
B) The $165 is per 20 acres, not per acre. "In FY 2022, the BLM collected a total of almost $94 million in fees associated with nearly 489,100 active mining claims on Federal lands"
The article tells the story of how two former spies and enemies, Frederick Russell Burnham and Fritz Duquesne, joined forces to promote the idea of importing hippos from Africa to Louisiana in 1910. Their plan was to solve the Meat Question, a crisis of meat supply and demand in America, and also to get rid of the invasive water hyacinths that were choking the rivers. They had the support of a Louisiana congressman, Robert Broussard, who introduced a bill to fund their project. The article explores the historical context, the personalities, and the motivations of the main characters, as well as the challenges and opposition they faced. It also examines the cultural and ecological implications of their proposal, which was ultimately rejected by Congress.
my question to llm: why did they want to kill each other?
answer: They wanted to kill each other because they were spies on opposite sides of the Second Boer War in South Africa. Burnham was an American who fought for the British Empire, while Duquesne was a Boer who fought for the independence of his people. They had several encounters and attempts to assassinate each other during the war, but none succeeded
Canada is dominated by five enormous banks, they are closely regulated, and Canada has had a better experience than USA with both fewer bank failures and higher real interest rates paid to customers.
Bet on every number but 0 on a roulette wheel
Not 0: you and your investors make 3 billion this year
0: you and your investors lose your 20 billion you have invested, and the government bails out your depositors who kept 200 billion with you
This stylized bet is a good deal for the investors and management and bad for the government. Sometimes investors lose everything but it's still a very good bet in expectation. This stylized example is a case of "privatized gains, socialized losses".
Then the question is: was SVB reckless? They could have been less reckless by covering their interest rate exposure, but the fed has an equity to deposits ratio requirement, and getting any equity to invest requires a return. IMO they should have either diversified their business or stopped opening new accounts for tech companies because when depositors are uninsured and concentrated in the same industry, that is risky.
Vitalik's requirement for an automated stablecoin to only hold crypto assets is quite severe. If there's a general crypto downturn, people are going to want their money back, which turns into a bank run. It only takes a minority of holders to want their money back in order to create a bank run (and bank runs can start small and get larger because the debt/equity ratio goes down if you are already not at 100% of debt backed by equity and if you pay holders 100% value when they get out of the stablecoin). Basically the only reason to hold a stablecoin instead of the underlying assets is convenience, because if you own an automated stablecoin you don't own any upside but you do own downside risk (e.g. Terra)
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-09/we-mig...
Well, I just got through saying that there’s not really any reward for being pessimistic and right about valuation when you are pitching an IPO. Your optimistic competitors will get the mandate, and then spend some time walking the company back
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On the other hand it is a repeat game and there are occasionally penalties for getting it wrong:
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it will be rough for Morgan Stanley if winning the biggest IPO prize [Uber] of the unicorn era loses it the biggest IPO prize of all time [Saudi Aramco]
It's less good at explaining the vast outlier (larger outlier on cost than gdp) that is US construction costs.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/why-we-cant-figure-ou...