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I think there are some interesting questions: - Sam does not have equity in OpenAI. Does this mean he can potentially be removed at any point in time? - OpenA

I think there are some interesting questions: - Sam does not have equity in OpenAI. Does this mean he can potentially be removed at any point in time? - OpenAI's profit arm will funnel excess profit to its non-profit wing. If this is the case, who determines excess profit? - OpenAI's founding charter commits the company to abandoning research efforts if another project nears AGI development. If this happens, what happens to the profit arm?

whitepoplar 4y ago
I refuse to believe that Sam doesn't have equity in OpenAI. It must be some 4D-chess-style ownership structure, which I'm guessing is for tax avoidance.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- xiphias2 4y ago
  It's nothing special, there's a company under the foundation, he doesn't have share in the company, he's ceo and board member of the foundation. It's just this one non-important detail is now being repeated over and over.
- boeingUH60 4y ago
  > It must be some 4D-chess-style ownership structure, which I'm guessing is for tax avoidance. How would this even work? If only I got a dollar for someone suggesting that there are Magic ways to avoid tax…”they just write it off!”
  - namaria 4y ago
    Magic is just a word for things we don't understand. As a poor wage slave sap, I'm 100% sure the world is run by magic guilds, i.e. a bunch of powerful people conspiring stuff I could never fathom. Whatever gets to my eyes and ears has been approved for public disclosure. I don't know shit, everything is magic to me. I kinda know how to survive. So far.
- brookst 4y ago
  There’s plenty of evidence that he has no equity. I’d love to see contradictory evidence, but without that, just refusing to believe things based on intuition isn’t great.
  - ryanSrich 4y ago
    Why is that not great? It makes absolutely zero sense for him to have no equity, or at least some agreement in place that equity is coming. Or some other terms that essentially amount to equity. You don’t need evidence to be skeptical of the situation.
    - brookst 4y ago
      He was wealthy before and has other means to parlay openai to further wealth. You’re doing the “only the true messiah would deny his divinity” argument — if he was going to profit, that’s bad. If he’s not going to profit, obviously he’s lying and is going to profit, so that’s bad. IMO arguments are only meaningful if they can be falsified. Your argument can’t be falsified because you’re using a lack of evidence as proof.
      - bagacrap 4y ago
        When did he say profit was bad?
    - peripitea 4y ago
      Why does it make zero sense? It makes perfect sense to me.
  - graeme 4y ago
    With no equity comes no control. I would find it very surprising he has no control over the project. And if he does have control that has value whether you label it equity or not. It is possible he literally has no control and no financial upside but who would turn down control over what they believed to be a world shaping technology?
ren_engineer 4y ago
he admits in the article to having equity via his investment fund, they are using semantics because he doesn't "personally" have equity. He also tries to downplay by saying it's an "immaterial" amount, but in reality that could be billions of dollars. There's also nothing preventing Microsoft from gifting him billions in Microsoft stock so they can claim he's not motivated by profit with OpenAI despite indirectly making money off it. You'd have to be extremely naïve to look at the decisions he's made at OpenAI and think it was all purely out of good will. Google and AWS both offer credits for academic and charity projects, why did Altman choose to go all in with Microsoft if it wasn't for money?
- peripitea 4y ago
  Do you honestly think that AWS or Google Cloud would have given them billions in credits just because they're a nonprofit? I'm all for being skeptical of powerful people's motives but that suggests a major disconnect from reality somewhere in your thinking.
fauigerzigerk 4y ago
>OpenAI's founding charter commits the company to abandoning research efforts if another project nears AGI development. If this happens, what happens to the profit arm? I think the definition of AGI is sufficiently vague that this will never happen. And if it did happen, abandoning research efforts could take the form of selling the for-profit arm to Microsoft.
- gamesbrainiac 4y ago
  I think you have a point there. AGI doesn't have a straight-forward litmus test.
HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago
There are a number of people/companies who have invested in OpenAI under their capped profit format, with earlier investors getting higher caps than later ones. Apparently investment profit caps range from 100x to 7x.

whitepoplar 4y ago

I refuse to believe that Sam doesn't have equity in OpenAI. It must be some 4D-chess-style ownership structure, which I'm guessing is for tax avoidance.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
xiphias2 4y ago
It's nothing special, there's a company under the foundation, he doesn't have share in the company, he's ceo and board member of the foundation. It's just this one non-important detail is now being repeated over and over.
boeingUH60 4y ago
> It must be some 4D-chess-style ownership structure, which I'm guessing is for tax avoidance. How would this even work? If only I got a dollar for someone suggesting that there are Magic ways to avoid tax…”they just write it off!”
- namaria 4y ago
  Magic is just a word for things we don't understand. As a poor wage slave sap, I'm 100% sure the world is run by magic guilds, i.e. a bunch of powerful people conspiring stuff I could never fathom. Whatever gets to my eyes and ears has been approved for public disclosure. I don't know shit, everything is magic to me. I kinda know how to survive. So far.
brookst 4y ago
There’s plenty of evidence that he has no equity. I’d love to see contradictory evidence, but without that, just refusing to believe things based on intuition isn’t great.
- ryanSrich 4y ago
  Why is that not great? It makes absolutely zero sense for him to have no equity, or at least some agreement in place that equity is coming. Or some other terms that essentially amount to equity. You don’t need evidence to be skeptical of the situation.
  - brookst 4y ago
    He was wealthy before and has other means to parlay openai to further wealth. You’re doing the “only the true messiah would deny his divinity” argument — if he was going to profit, that’s bad. If he’s not going to profit, obviously he’s lying and is going to profit, so that’s bad. IMO arguments are only meaningful if they can be falsified. Your argument can’t be falsified because you’re using a lack of evidence as proof.
    - bagacrap 4y ago
      When did he say profit was bad?
  - peripitea 4y ago
    Why does it make zero sense? It makes perfect sense to me.
- graeme 4y ago
  With no equity comes no control. I would find it very surprising he has no control over the project. And if he does have control that has value whether you label it equity or not. It is possible he literally has no control and no financial upside but who would turn down control over what they believed to be a world shaping technology?

ren_engineer 4y ago

he admits in the article to having equity via his investment fund, they are using semantics because he doesn't "personally" have equity. He also tries to downplay by saying it's an "immaterial" amount, but in reality that could be billions of dollars. There's also nothing preventing Microsoft from gifting him billions in Microsoft stock so they can claim he's not motivated by profit with OpenAI despite indirectly making money off it. You'd have to be extremely naïve to look at the decisions he's made at OpenAI and think it was all purely out of good will. Google and AWS both offer credits for academic and charity projects, why did Altman choose to go all in with Microsoft if it wasn't for money?

peripitea 4y ago
Do you honestly think that AWS or Google Cloud would have given them billions in credits just because they're a nonprofit? I'm all for being skeptical of powerful people's motives but that suggests a major disconnect from reality somewhere in your thinking.

fauigerzigerk 4y ago

>OpenAI's founding charter commits the company to abandoning research efforts if another project nears AGI development. If this happens, what happens to the profit arm? I think the definition of AGI is sufficiently vague that this will never happen. And if it did happen, abandoning research efforts could take the form of selling the for-profit arm to Microsoft.

gamesbrainiac 4y ago
I think you have a point there. AGI doesn't have a straight-forward litmus test.

HarHarVeryFunny 4y ago

There are a number of people/companies who have invested in OpenAI under their capped profit format, with earlier investors getting higher caps than later ones. Apparently investment profit caps range from 100x to 7x.