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Altman has claimed before that he doesn't hold equity in OpenAI. He could have some kind of more opaque arrangement that gives him a material stake in the finan

Altman has claimed before that he doesn't hold equity in OpenAI. He could have some kind of more opaque arrangement that gives him a material stake in the financial success of OpenAI, and downplayed it or didn't disclose it to the board. Who knows, though -- I'm sure we'll find out more in the next few weeks, but it's fun to guess.

Solvency 3y ago
What kind of opaque arrangement? What would be better than equity?
- batman-farts 3y ago
  I could easily see him, or any other insider, setting themselves up administrating a recipient entity for contributions out of those “capped profits” the parent non-profit is supposed to distribute. (If, of course, the company ever becomes profitable at the scale where the cap kicks in.) Seems like it would be a great way to eventually maintain control over your own little empire while also obfuscating its structure and dodging some of the scrutiny that SV executives have attracted during the past decade. Originally meant as a magnanimous PR gesture, but will probably end up being taught as a particularly messy example of corporate governance in business schools.
  - chatmasta 3y ago
    That would be a form of obfuscated profit-sharing, not equity ownership. Equity is something you can sell to someone else.
    - edgyquant 3y ago
      Regardless the lack of equity is often cited as some proof he has no incentive to enshittify and the point is that’s probably not true
      - chatmasta 3y ago
        Yeah, I agree that the whole legal structure is basically duplicitous, and any attempt to cite it as some evidence of virtue is more emblematic of the opposite...
- infamouscow 3y ago
  Taking over the world, obviously ;)
- happytiger 3y ago
  A seat at the table for the revolution. You have to understand that OpenAI was never going to be anything more than the profit limited generator of the change. It’s the lamb. Owning a stake in OpenAI isn’t important. Creating the change is. Owning stakes in the companies that will ultimately capture and harvest the profits of the disruption caused by OpenAI (and they’re ilk) is. OpenAI can’t become a profit center while it disrupts all intellectual work and digitizes humanities future: those optics are not something you want to be attached to. There is no flame retardant suite strong enough.
  - kridsdale3 3y ago
    This is one cyberpunk-ass statement
    - happytiger 3y ago
      Worldcoin is scanning people’s irises by having them look into a sphere called a fucking Orb so it can automatically create crypto wallets and distribute global minimum basic incomes after the AI apocalypse. Altman conceived and raised $115 million for the company. Agenda cyberpunk is on.
    - parentheses 3y ago
      This is one reddit ass response. lol
      - happytiger 3y ago
        Including the mining of the comments for ideas to publish on mainstream news. https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/21/the-non-profits-accelerating-sam-altmans-ai-vision/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/21/the-non-profits-accelerati...
  - happytiger 3y ago
    That didn’t take long. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-19/altman-sought-billions-for-ai-chip-venture-before-openai-ouster https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-19/altman-so...
leptons 3y ago
He's not just a CEO, he's a co-founder, and thinking he has no stake in the company is just ridiculous.
chubot 3y ago
Yeah that's my guess too. The claim that he doesn't hold equity always struck me as suspect. It's a little like SBF driving around in the Toyota Corolla while buying tens of millions of dollars of real estate for himself and his family. It's better to claim your stake in a forthright way, than to have some kind of lucrative side deal, off the books. For a non-profit, there was too much secrecy about the company structure (the shift to being closed rather than Open), the source of training data, and the financial arrangements with Microsoft. And a few years ago a whole bunch of employees left to start a different company/non-profit, etc. It feels like a ton of stuff was simmering below the surface. (I should add that I have no idea why someone who was wealthy before OpenAI would want to do such a thing, but it's the only reason I can imagine for this abrupt firing. There are staggering amounts of money at play, so there's room for portions of it to be un-noticed.)
- lazyasciiart 3y ago
  I always assumed that it was about as meaningful as Jobs and the '$1 salary'.
  - chubot 3y ago
    Yeah, although I guess you can read that as: "I will do everything I can to raise the stock price, which executives and employees both hold", then it actually makes sense. But that $1 salary thing got quoted into a meme, and people didn't understand the true implication. The idea is that employee and CEO incentives should be aligned -- they are part of a team. If Jobs actually had NO equity like Altman claims, then that wouldn't be the case! Which is why it's important for everyone to be clear about their stake. It's definitely possible for CEOs to steal from employees. There are actually corporate raiders, and Jobs wasn't one of them. (Of course he's no saint, and did a bunch of other sketchy things, like collusion to hold down employee salaries, and financial fraud: https://www.cnet.com/culture/how-jobs-dodged-the-stock-option-backdating-bullet/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/how-jobs-dodged-the-stock-optio... The SEC's complaint focuses on the backdating of two large option grants, one of 4.8 million shares for Apple's executive team and the other of 7.5 million shares for Steve Jobs.) I have no idea what happened in Altman's case. Now I think there may not be any smoking gun, but just an accumulation of all these "curious" and opaque decisions and outcomes. Basically a continuation of all the stuff that led a whole bunch of people to leave a few years ago.
enonimal 3y ago
Worldcoin deserves a look: https://worldcoin.org/ https://worldcoin.org/
jy1 3y ago
Doesn't everyone at openai have "profit participation units"? https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html
- kordlessagain 3y ago
  I'd take mine in tokens...
numbsafari 3y ago
Could be that they had an expectation that he not own stock in MSFT since they have such a direct relationship there and found out that he has been holding shares in MSFT.
- LelouBil 3y ago
  Would that result in a firing on such short notice ?

Solvency 3y ago

What kind of opaque arrangement? What would be better than equity?

batman-farts 3y ago
I could easily see him, or any other insider, setting themselves up administrating a recipient entity for contributions out of those “capped profits” the parent non-profit is supposed to distribute. (If, of course, the company ever becomes profitable at the scale where the cap kicks in.) Seems like it would be a great way to eventually maintain control over your own little empire while also obfuscating its structure and dodging some of the scrutiny that SV executives have attracted during the past decade. Originally meant as a magnanimous PR gesture, but will probably end up being taught as a particularly messy example of corporate governance in business schools.
- chatmasta 3y ago
  That would be a form of obfuscated profit-sharing, not equity ownership. Equity is something you can sell to someone else.
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    Regardless the lack of equity is often cited as some proof he has no incentive to enshittify and the point is that’s probably not true
    - chatmasta 3y ago
      Yeah, I agree that the whole legal structure is basically duplicitous, and any attempt to cite it as some evidence of virtue is more emblematic of the opposite...
infamouscow 3y ago
Taking over the world, obviously ;)
happytiger 3y ago
A seat at the table for the revolution. You have to understand that OpenAI was never going to be anything more than the profit limited generator of the change. It’s the lamb. Owning a stake in OpenAI isn’t important. Creating the change is. Owning stakes in the companies that will ultimately capture and harvest the profits of the disruption caused by OpenAI (and they’re ilk) is. OpenAI can’t become a profit center while it disrupts all intellectual work and digitizes humanities future: those optics are not something you want to be attached to. There is no flame retardant suite strong enough.
- kridsdale3 3y ago
  This is one cyberpunk-ass statement
  - happytiger 3y ago
    Worldcoin is scanning people’s irises by having them look into a sphere called a fucking Orb so it can automatically create crypto wallets and distribute global minimum basic incomes after the AI apocalypse. Altman conceived and raised $115 million for the company. Agenda cyberpunk is on.
  - parentheses 3y ago
    This is one reddit ass response. lol
    - happytiger 3y ago
      Including the mining of the comments for ideas to publish on mainstream news. https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/21/the-non-profits-accelerating-sam-altmans-ai-vision/ https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/21/the-non-profits-accelerati...
- happytiger 3y ago
  That didn’t take long. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-19/altman-sought-billions-for-ai-chip-venture-before-openai-ouster https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-19/altman-so...

leptons 3y ago

He's not just a CEO, he's a co-founder, and thinking he has no stake in the company is just ridiculous.

chubot 3y ago

Yeah that's my guess too. The claim that he doesn't hold equity always struck me as suspect. It's a little like SBF driving around in the Toyota Corolla while buying tens of millions of dollars of real estate for himself and his family. It's better to claim your stake in a forthright way, than to have some kind of lucrative side deal, off the books. For a non-profit, there was too much secrecy about the company structure (the shift to being closed rather than Open), the source of training data, and the financial arrangements with Microsoft. And a few years ago a whole bunch of employees left to start a different company/non-profit, etc. It feels like a ton of stuff was simmering below the surface. (I should add that I have no idea why someone who was wealthy before OpenAI would want to do such a thing, but it's the only reason I can imagine for this abrupt firing. There are staggering amounts of money at play, so there's room for portions of it to be un-noticed.)

lazyasciiart 3y ago
I always assumed that it was about as meaningful as Jobs and the '$1 salary'.
- chubot 3y ago
  Yeah, although I guess you can read that as: "I will do everything I can to raise the stock price, which executives and employees both hold", then it actually makes sense. But that $1 salary thing got quoted into a meme, and people didn't understand the true implication. The idea is that employee and CEO incentives should be aligned -- they are part of a team. If Jobs actually had NO equity like Altman claims, then that wouldn't be the case! Which is why it's important for everyone to be clear about their stake. It's definitely possible for CEOs to steal from employees. There are actually corporate raiders, and Jobs wasn't one of them. (Of course he's no saint, and did a bunch of other sketchy things, like collusion to hold down employee salaries, and financial fraud: https://www.cnet.com/culture/how-jobs-dodged-the-stock-option-backdating-bullet/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/how-jobs-dodged-the-stock-optio... The SEC's complaint focuses on the backdating of two large option grants, one of 4.8 million shares for Apple's executive team and the other of 7.5 million shares for Steve Jobs.) I have no idea what happened in Altman's case. Now I think there may not be any smoking gun, but just an accumulation of all these "curious" and opaque decisions and outcomes. Basically a continuation of all the stuff that led a whole bunch of people to leave a few years ago.

enonimal 3y ago

Worldcoin deserves a look: https://worldcoin.org/ https://worldcoin.org/

jy1 3y ago

Doesn't everyone at openai have "profit participation units"? https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html https://www.levels.fyi/blog/openai-compensation.html

kordlessagain 3y ago
I'd take mine in tokens...

numbsafari 3y ago

Could be that they had an expectation that he not own stock in MSFT since they have such a direct relationship there and found out that he has been holding shares in MSFT.

LelouBil 3y ago
Would that result in a firing on such short notice ?